A 59-year-old Benton woman who authorities say misappropriated $5,140 from six clients at a North Little Rock nursing home has been sentenced to probation on the condition she repay $1,540 within a year.
Beverly Ann Brooks pleaded guilty on Monday in Pulaski County Circuit Court to six misdemeanor counts of abuse of an endangered or impaired person, each reduced from a felony. The felony charges together carried a 36-year maximum prison sentence.
As a first offender, she can have her convictions expunged if she completes probation without getting into more trouble with the law.
The funds were taken in February from the trust-fund accounts of six clients of the Highlands of North Little Rock Therapy and Living Center on John Ashley Drive, the attorney general's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit said in a statement announcing Brooks' January arrest.
Her plea arrangement with the state lawyers requires her to pay about $130 per month beginning in December to Georgia-based Regional Health Properties Inc., which owned the facility at the time. She also will serve a year on probation.
The center was one of nine nursing homes in Arkansas sold by the Regional Health company for $55 million.
Metro on 11/16/2017