Nursing Home Identity Thieves Cannot Be Charged With Elder Abuse
Tamara Smith
We discussed nursing home identity thieves in our previous blog. Cousins Tamara Smith and Teresa Robbins reportedly stole the identities of 43 people, approximately half of whom were residents of Tara Nursing Home in Thunderbolt, Georgia. The cousins faced approximately 101 charges ranging from identity theft to fraud. Unfortunately, a loophole in the law will allow 26 of those charges to be dropped. Georgia law identifies an elder person as a person 65 years of age or older that is not a resident of a long term care facility. Therefore, 26 charges must be dropped. Captain James Pierce of the Thunderbolt Police Department intends to go through each date the perpetrators used someone's personal information either to order credit cards or purchase cell phones and determine whether or not that victim was a resident of a nursing home. Seventy-five charges will remain against the two for using the victim's personal information to purchase computers, cell phones, and open credit cards.
