House arrest for nursing home thief
A former personal support worker at a long-term care home who stole from a 93-yearold blind resident, the Multiple Sclerosis Society and an ailing coworker was sentenced to 90 days of house arrest on Friday.
Kim Mattice, 55, a former PSW at Maple View Lodge in Athens, about 25 kilometres west of Brockville, pleaded guilty to the three counts earlier this year and she has been fired from her job.
She was caught on video entering the room of the blind patient who had carefully hidden his $130 nest egg because of two previous thefts.
Mattice also stole $1,207 from money collected by a staff-organized fundraising campaign for the MS Society.
And she took a $100 grocery gift card meant as a 2016 Christmas present for a sick co-worker.
Mattice’s lawyer, Felicia O’Hara, said her client was struggling with personal and financial stresses when she stole the money.
Mattice’s spouse of 15 years had heart trouble and three strokes, which rendered him unable to work, O’Hara said.
At about the same time, Mattice took in her aging father who was suffering from dementia, O’Hara said. Without Mattice’s care, the father would have had to go into a home, the lawyer added.
O’Hara noted her client had no previous criminal record. Mattice stole the MS money to pay for a new hot water heater, she said.
With a partner, Mattice has set up a company called Kim Care to offer care for the elderly in their homes, O’Hara said.
The lawyer urged Justice Alison Wheeler of the Ontario Court of Justice to give Mattice a conditional discharge so that her client would not have a criminal record. O’Hara said that a record would mean that Mattice could not work as a personal support worker, a job that she has done for 30 years.
Crown prosecutor Keith Schultz, however, argued that Mattice deserved a conditional sentence of at least 90 days for her thefts and breach of trust,
“She stole from a 93-year-old blind man” in her care, Schultz said.
Schultz said he would have asked for real jail time, if not for the mitigating circumstances pointed out by O’Hara.
He added that many people of Mattice’s age have to deal with aging parents and sick spouses, but they don’t resort to theft.
In her sentence, Wheeler agreed with the prosecution, citing Mattice’s “serious breach of trust.”
Wheeler said that breach of trust was underlined in a portion of the blind man’s victim impact statement. “When my money went missing the third time, I lost my trust in the staff that cared for me for many years,” the man said in his statement.
Mattice will be allowed to go out for five hours to shop on Saturdays. She will be able to drive her spouse and father to medical appointments as needed. She will also have to pay back the money she stole.