Retirement residence ex-worker arrested

Sheriff's officials say the woman, who was fired Monday, ran up more than $1,800 in charges on a St. Mark Village resident's credit card.

By ROBERT FARLEY and CHRIS TISCH
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 4, 2002

PALM HARBOR -- A former employee of St. Mark Village retirement community was charged with theft and four current employees were suspended Monday in two unrelated incidents involving residents.

In one incident, a former St. Mark certified nursing assistant was arrested Monday on charges she stole a credit card from an elderly resident, then charged more than $1,800 of personal expenses.

In the other matter, four certified nursing assistants were suspended with pay during an investigation into why a male resident was found with a piece of tape on his lips Friday morning.

In the first case, Viki C. Ragains, 45, was arrested at her Clearwater residence and charged with grand theft. She remained Monday evening in the Pinellas County Jail in lieu of $5,000 bail.

Pinellas sheriff's officials say Ragains took the credit card of 85-year-old Ferne DeFilippi. Ragains used the card for personal expenses for herself and her children, ranging from tanning salon visits, cellular phone bills and new shoes, said sheriff's spokeswoman Marianne Pasha.

The case is still under investigation because Ragains has admitted to charging as much as $6,000 on the elderly woman's card, Pasha said.

A financial caretaker noticed some unexplained charges on DeFilippi's account and told staff members at St. Mark, who in turn notified the Sheriff's Office, St. Mark Village president Ed Hutfilz said.

"We certainly take anything like this very seriously," he said.

Detective Kevin Judd then tracked the unexplained charges to Ragains, Pasha said.

Facility officials suspended Regain when the allegations first surfaced, then fired her Monday after she was arrested, Hutfilz said.

In the incident in which the patient was found with a small piece of tape on his lips, Hutfilz said the patient, who is older than 80, was not injured, does not recall how the tape got there and said he was not bothered by it.

Nonetheless, Hutfilz said, "we need to get to the bottom of this."

The paper tape, which was on the man less than 15 minutes, was reported by one of the nursing assistants. All four certified nursing assistants working that morning were suspended, Hutfilz said. All have said they know nothing about it.

For all the administration knows, he said, another resident could have done it or the man could have done it himself. The incident was reported to the state Department of Children and Families, which interviewed the patient Monday afternoon.

"Since at this point we are unable to determine which one (of the certified nursing assistants), if any, are responsible, we have placed them all on administrative leave pending an investigation by the Department of Children and Families," he said. The names of the four employees were not released, Hutfilz said, because it is possible none of them did anything wrong.

St. Mark is a nonprofit continuing care retirement center with more than 500 residents in independent living apartments, an assisted living area and an 80-bed nursing home. The resident in the incident involving the tape is a patient in the nursing home.

According to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, St. Mark Village's nursing home scored in the top three-fifths of facilities in the state overall.

In December 1998 and in January 2000, inspectors found violations of state rules concerning the use of restraints. In both cases, inspectors found that there was no harm done.

On Monday, Hutfilz said that in each case a doctor had ordered the use of a restraint, but inspectors raised questions about the process used to assess the need for the restraint and the paperwork concerning its use. In the 2000 case, the facility stopped using the restraint after inspectors raised questions, he said. Neither citation resulted in a fine.

"If there's something that they feel we can do better, we're happy to take care of it," Hutfilz said. "In both cases, these are not in any way citations that went to the proper care of the residents."

-- Times staff writer Richard Danielson contributed to this report.

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