Seattle Times
Wednesday, December 15, 1999
Other cases where people with criminal records got jobs as caregivers for the
sick, elderly and disabled:
Charlotte Nichols
Somehow, Charlotte Nichols kept slipping through.
She was convicted of first-degree theft, tax fraud and making false statements
in 1995. She was supposed to pay back the state $157,000.
The next year, she became a certified nursing assistant.
Nichols got a job in an Everett nursing home, despite the fact that a
background check was supposed to have been done. In March 1998, Nichols was
accused of forging and cashing a $400 check that belonged to a resident with
multiple sclerosis.
Police investigated. So did the state Attorney General's Office. The victim got
her money back and said she didn't want to be bothered. In the end, Nichols
wasn't charged with a crime.
Four months later, Nichols got a job as a personal caregiver for an Everett
woman suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia. No background checks are
required for workers who care for people in their homes.
Nichols took checks from the woman's husband, and Nichols and other members of
a check-forging ring cashed two of them for $15,000.
"I couldn't believe it was happening," the woman's husband said. "My wife was
so sick. I didn't pick it up like I should have."
The woman died in November 1998, the month after Nichols was charged with theft
and forgery. Nichols, who lost her certificate to be a nursing assistant, said
she was sorry.
"My stupidity has a ripple-down effect - I was in a position of trust in the
nursing industry, and I truly loved being a caregiver and I was really good at
it," Nichols wrote in a plea for leniency. "Now it will be 10 years before I
can go back into the field. To me, that is another big tragedy of this mess I
made."
In June, Nichols was sentenced to 40 months in prison, after pleading guilty.
She has appealed.
Herman Roy Clark
Herman Roy Clark first choked his wife until she passed out. Then he stabbed
her, as many as 20 times.
He pleaded guilty in 1973 to assault with a deadly weapon. Clark could have
served life in prison in California, but instead, he got out after four years.
At some point, he changed his name to Muhammad Muhammad and moved to Washington
state. He became a certified nursing assistant, and in November 1995 the
Department of Social and Health Services gave him a contract to take care of a
man in the man's home.
The next month, that man was admitted to a hospital where he stayed until he
died in May 1996. But Muhammad billed DSHS almost $2,500 for that period - time
he could not have cared for the patient, court records show.
DSHS started investigating Muhammad in May 1996, and he paid the money back in
October 1996, court records show. He was charged with first-degree theft, but
the charge was dropped because he'd paid the money back.
In 1997, Muhammad was hired at a Tacoma nursing home.
In January 1998, he was accused of slapping a patient. He denied it, but he was
fired.
In February of this year, Muhammad lost his certification to be a nursing
assistant because of his prior conviction. He was never charged with a crime.
Richard Johnson
Richard Johnson had a criminal history dating back to 1964 for lewd behavior,
indecent exposure, larceny and robbery.
But he became a nursing assistant. And if his employers did do the required
background checks on him, he would have passed. His criminal history didn't
prevent him from being a nursing assistant.
He sexually assaulted a 70-year-old Renton nursing-home patient in 1995. Then,
months later, he sexually assaulted an 80-year-old Des Moines nursing-home
patient.
Johnson was convicted of two counts of indecent liberties, and he is now serving
a 72-month prison term.
Habtu Habtemicael
Habtu Habtemicael's record should have been obvious.
The certified nursing assistant was charged with third-degree rape of a child
for attacking a 14-year-old female volunteer at the Auburn nursing home where
he worked. He pleaded guilty in 1994 to the reduced charge of second-degree
assault.
Then, about two weeks before he was supposed to start his jail term,
Habtemicael found a job at a Seattle nursing home.
Habtemicael said he left his previous job because he was tired of working
nights. He said he had no convictions. And the nursing home sent in a
criminal-background request to the Washington State Patrol - twice. Both times,
nothing came up.
So he was hired, at least until he had to start his jail sentence.
In February 1997, Habtemicael lost his certification to be a nursing assistant.
Carla Hansen
Carla Hansen couldn't seem to keep a license.
She lost her license to work as a practical nurse in 1987 for taking drugs from
a Longview nursing home and from Tacoma General Hospital.
In 1988, she got in trouble with the Board of Nursing for taking drugs from a
Cowlitz nursing home and keeping false records about those drugs. But she
didn't lose her registered-nursing license.
In 1989, Hansen was hired by a Kelso nursing home. She became the acting
administrator.
In 1990, she lost her registered-nurse license for at least 10 years, partly
because she tested positive for drugs.
She kept her job, though, until December 1992. The next month, she was arrested
for embezzling $9,289.09 from the trust funds of 23 patients.
Police told the Attorney General's Office that Hansen said she used a lot of
the money to buy clothing and jewelry. She said she thought she'd only taken a
few hundred dollars, records show.
She pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree theft and one count of
second-degree theft. She was sentenced to nine months in jail.
Lilliemae Hopkins
Lilliemae Hopkins has been convicted of robbery, theft, prostitution,
possessing stolen property and unlawfully using drug paraphernalia.
But when she applied to be a certified nursing assistant in 1993, she disclosed
only one conviction - for second-degree robbery in 1973, not a crime that would
prevent her from working in a nursing home. She also didn't disclose all the
names that she had used.
A Bellevue nursing home hired Hopkins in April 1998, allowing her near patients
before a background check was complete.
She was fired weeks later for not showing up at work. A week after that, the
nursing home found out about Hopkins' past.
Then a resident complained that a check-cashing center had called him, asking
if he had written a $100 check to Hopkins. He hadn't. The check wasn't cashed,
and Bellevue police didn't investigate.
A year later, Hopkins lost her certificate to be a nursing assistant.
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