95-Year-Old Left In Car For 2 Hours As Caregiver Gambled, Police Say
By David Schepp , Posted Feb 21st 2012 @ 12:14PM
A woman responsible for taking care of a 95-year-old with dementia was arrested Sunday after leaving her in a car for more than two hours to gamble at a South Florida casino, police say.
According to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Maria Holly, 53, was arrested after a visitor to the Seminole Casino Coconut Creek noticed the 95-year-old woman sitting in a car and called police.
The elder woman, Belle Sapstein, who wasn't able to answer questions about herself because of her dementia, was uninjured, police say. She was taken to a local hospital for observation and was still listed as a patient there Monday afternoon, the newspaper says.
Surveillance video from the casino, located about 40 miles north of Miami, reportedly showed Holly driving into the parking lot at 4:49 p.m. on Sunday. An officer was dispatched at 7:07 p.m.
Though Sapstein appeared to suffer no distress from the incident, she was left alone without food, drink or a cellphone, WPTV in Palm Beach says, citing a report by a police officer responding to the call.
Holly, who says she is a licensed nurse, thought it was OK to leave the elderly woman in the car, according to the arrest report.
Broward County Circuit Judge Louis Schiff ordered Holly to be held on $6,000 bond and to have no contact with Sapstein, the TV station reports. Schiff also prohibited Holly from working as a caregiver until her criminal case is resolved.
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David Schepp
David Schepp has spent more than a dozen years covering business news for the electronic and print media, including Dow Jones Newswires, BBC News, Gannett Co., and most recently at AOL's DailyFinance. Nearly 10 years ago, he started writing a weekly People@Work column, looking in depth at issues facing workers in today's workplace. Follow David on Twitter.
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