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TALLAHASSEE, FL – Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that a Pinellas County caregiver has been taken into custody on charges that she abused a disabled woman under her care. Brenda Lois McKnight, a former employee of Jacaranda Manor Nursing Home, was arrested by law enforcement officers with the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.

McKnight, 50, worked at the care facility as a certified nursing assistant. Investigators learned from witnesses that McKnight allegedly became angry with the victim and struck her. She has been fired from her position as a caregiver and admitted to supervisors and an investigator from the Attorney General’s office that she did strike the victim.

McKnight has been charged with one count of battery of a disabled person, a third-degree felony. In addition to a potential five-year prison sentence, McKnight could receive up to $10,000 in fines. The case is being prosecuted by the State Attorney for the Sixth Judicial Circuit in Pinellas County.