Rock Hill Woman Accused Of Stealing Money From Nursing Home Patients

A Chester woman turned herself in to Rock Hill police Thursday. She's charged with stealing money from patients at the nursing home where she worked.

Melissa Kelly was the business manager at Magnolia Manor on Murrah Drive in Rock Hill. Rock Hill police have charged her with one count of forgery, and one count of elder exploitation.

Kelly was fired from her job last fall after an internal audit uncovered more than $65,000 of company checks that were forged and then cashed, according to police reports.

"The more we dug, the more blatant it became," said detective David Hanoka who spent four months investigating the case.

Hanoka said dozens of nursing home patients lost money since April of 2006 without ever knowing it.

"Family members we talked to said, this is the first we've heard any of this information," he said.

Many of the nursing home residents on Medicaid or Medicare have small trust accounts used for spending money. The money is often petty cash that's used for small day to day items. Those are the accounts police say were stolen from.

"This money was never distributed to the individuals it should've been distributed to," Hanoka said.

Instead, police believe Kelly forged and cashed the checks. Police said it's not clear how much of the missing $65,000 she is responsible for. Police focused their investigation on just 14 cases they say took place in 2008.

The state attorney general's office will continue the investigation, and prosecute the case.

Thursday afternoon a judge set Kelly's bond at $2,000. Her attorney objected, pointing out that Kelly is a mother of five, unemployed, and has no criminal record.

Attorney Hemphill Pride called the bond an undue hardship on Kelly's family during tough economic times.

Joy Patterson, the administrator at Magnolia Manor, told Eyewitness News late Thursday that the company was not ready to release a statement yet, but would soon.