Nationwide Crime Ring Targets Nursing Home Residents
Markinious Ketrell Hartfield
The entire United States nursing home population could be at risk in a new nursing home scam. Colorado has been the most recent target where male thieves dressing as female nurses and entering nursing home and senior living facilities.
The men enter the facilities wearing medical scrubs and then proceed to enter resident rooms and apartments while the residents are eating meals or participating in facility activities. They take the resident's credit cards, which are used at large retail businesses, such as Wal-Mart and Kmart. The thieves have struck at least twenty times since May 2009 and have run up charges on the stolen credit cards estimated betweeen $50,000 to $100,000.
The scam has been seen in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, and Kansas and could possibly be connected to a nationwide crime ring that began operating in April 2009.
The Colorado police have focused on and identified two possible subjects. The first man is Markinious Ketrell Hartfield, who was arrested in Colorado Springs in mid-September and bonded out. Hartfield was convicted in Louisiana in 2006 of crimes similar in nature. The second suspect is a man between 20 and 30 years old of slight build.
