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TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that a former manager of a Port St. Lucie group home has been arrested for stealing nearly $2,000 from an elderly patient once in his care. Rickey Hatcher was arrested early this morning by law enforcement officers with the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.

Hatcher, 45, is the former manager of Luna Long Group Home in Port St. Lucie. The Medicaid Fraud Control Unit’s Patient Abuse Neglect and Exploitation (PANE) team began investigating Hatcher after receiving a complaint referred from the Department of Children and Families. The investigation revealed that Hatcher, who had access to the victim’s checkbook, wrote himself three checks totaling $1,995 and deposited the funds into his personal checking account. The 74-year old victim did not give Hatcher permission to write or cash the checks nor did Hatcher have any legal authority to do so.

Hatcher is currently being held at the Palm Beach County Jail and will face criminal charges of exploiting of an elderly person and forgery, both third-degree felonies. If convicted of the charges, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The case will be prosecuted by the State Attorney’s Office for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit.