Nursing home case fizzles out

Bill Gang

Monday, April 7, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

For six years, a forgery case against two women alleged to have ripped off nursing home patients floundered in a sea of legal technicalities.

When the trial date finally approached last month, Deputy District Attorney Frank Ponticello threw up his hands in defeat and said he wasn't able to proceed in light of rulings by District Judge Jeff Sobel.

Sobel, who then dismissed the felony counts against Emma Etta Lewis and Glenda Jackson, had ruled that key pieces of the state's evidence were not legally admissible before a jury.

"The system failed these victims," a dejected Ponticello commented about the case he had pursued for years.

But the women's attorney, Peter Flangas, said Sobel's decision was the only one he could make under the law despite its adverse impact on the marathon case.

The charges alleged that the bank accounts of five elderly patients were unlawfully accessed or that their credit cards were illegally used by the defendants. But proving that was the problem.

Doomed from the start

In reality, the case was doomed from the start.

Although the events in the complaint were alleged to have occurred between August and November 1990, investigative delays prevented formal charges from being filed against Jackson and Lewis until June 1991.

By then, three of the five elderly residents of the Cheyenne Care Center in North Las Vegas had died. The fourth died Oct. 24, 1991, the day before the preliminary hearing in the case originally was scheduled to begin.

Sobel ruled that there was no way to prove the victims had not given permission for the transactions, although each had given affidavits to law enforcement officials swearing they had not.

That was not sufficient under the constitutional provision that those charged with crimes have a right to confront their accusers.

Affidavits simply aren't sufficient because there is no way to question the information through cross examination or other means, Flangas said.

He had argued from the beginning that his clients had authorization from the rest-home residents to dip into their private funds.

"Old people can give money away, just like anyone else," Flangas said in a 1993 court hearing.

The importance of questioning the victims was evident in the testimony at a 1991 preliminary hearing by the only surviving victim at that time, Mildred Bergman.

The frail, wheelchair-bound, 92-year-old woman was adamant that she hadn't given permission to Lewis to forge her name on a $105 check made out to Jackson. Lewis at the time was a social worker at the senior-care facility.

But under further questioning, it was clear that Bergman remembered little of the situation that brought her to court and she struggled to comprehend even the most simple questions from attorneys.

She wasn't sure what day it was or, for that matter, where she was. She didn't remember signing the complaint against the two defendants and couldn't recognize Lewis.

Poor memory cited

A psychiatrist testified that the woman suffered from "organic brain syndrome," which manifests itself in a poor memory and a reduction in other thought processes.

Dr. William O'Gorman stated that Bergman, who died a few months after her testimony, was "somewhat suggestible." He implied that possible prompting was responsible for her clear testimony about her signature and permission.

Ponticello had argued in early court hearings that the testimony of the victims should not be required because the same information about the alleged forgeries and the lack of permission could be established through "circumstantial evidence."

Handwriting experts had indicated the signatures on the checks and credit card receipts were not those of the owners.

Ponticello had noted that in one case, purchases were made with a victim's credit cards after he had died.

Ponticello said Lewis, who also goes by the name Yancy, confessed to North Las Vegas Police that "she'd taken the checks and money because she was having a hard time financially and thought she could make restitution before anyone found out."

The prosecutor said Jackson admitted she never knew the people whose checks were made out to her and added she didn't profit from the transactions but only held the money for Lewis.

Ponticello has said Jackson had no connection with the care facility at 2856 E. Cheyenne Ave. except that she was a friend of Lewis.

Credit cards found

Some of the missing credit cards, however, were found in Jackson's possession after her arrest, the prosecutor said.

While Ponticello's arguments managed to prove sufficient in North Las Vegas Justice Court -- where only slight or marginal evidence is required to justify holding a defendant for trial -- they weren't good enough for District Court.

The state could have appealed Sobel's decision to the Nevada Supreme Court, but after all the years, Ponticello conceded the district attorney's office resources could be better used elsewhere.

Although she is now free of the criminal charges, Lewis did have her social worker's license suspended indefinitely by the Nevada Board of Social Work Examiners as a result of the case.