January 23, 2008
Media Contact: Sandi Copes
Phone: (850) 245-0150
Owner of Santa Rosa County Adult Care Home Arrested for Exploiting Elderly Resident
~ Owner charged with intimidating resident into signing over life insurance policy and paying “additional fees” ~
TALLAHASSEE, FL - Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that the owner and operator of a Santa Rosa County Adult Family Care Home has been arrested and charged with exploiting an elderly resident of the facility. Marian Tolbert was taken into custody based on allegations that she intimidated the victim into making her the beneficiary of his $10,000 life insurance policy. She was arrested by the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit with assistance from the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office.
The victim, a seventy-four year old resident of the Minda Pascual Adult Family Care Home, was temporarily moved to the Tolbert Adult Family Care Home while his caretakers were out of town. He reported to investigators from the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit that he was forced to sleep on a couch for the better part of three weeks. He also described how Tolbert would constantly harass him for money and would threaten him in order to make her the beneficiary of his life insurance policy.
During the course of his stay with Tolbert, the victim also complied with her demands to pay her a security deposit and pay her money to run errands for him – costs that were already included in the blanket fee paid in advance by his caretakers. Further investigation revealed that bank records and other documents, including the altered life insurance policy, corroborated the victim’s allegations.
Tolbert was booked into the Santa Rosa County Jail under one count of exploiting an elderly person. If convicted, she could receive up to five years imprisonment and a $5,000 fine. The case will be prosecuted by the State Attorney’s Office for the First Judicial Circuit.