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Caretaker leaves a 95-year-old woman outside a Broward casino

 

SUN SENTINEL

A Boca Raton caretaker arrested for leaving a 95-year-old woman sitting in a parked car for two hours while she gambled at a Broward County casino appeared in court on Monday.

The woman, who suffers from dementia, was not hurt.

Mary Holly, 53, who said she is a licensed nurse and lives in her patient's Boca Raton home, fainted during her initial appearance in a courtroom. She's charged with one count of neglect of an elderly person.

When Holly was taken into custody on Sunday, there were two active warrants out for her arrest in Palm Beach County on unrelated charges of exploitation of an elderly person and grand theft, according to a police report. Details of those cases were not available Monday because of the Presidents’ Day holiday.

According to police, a visitor to the Seminole Casino Coconut Creek, 5550 NW 40th Street, called police Sunday after noticing Belle Sapstein had been sitting alone inside of a silver Saturn for at least an hour. The car belongs to the elderly woman.

A Coconut Creek Police officer wrote in his report that Sapstein had no signs of distress, but that she couldn't answer any basic questions about herself or about her medical history. The woman was left alone without food, drink or a cellphone, according to the report.

Surveillance video at the casino showed that Holly drove up to the parking lot at 4:49 p.m. Sunday.

The officer was dispatched to the casino at 7:07 p.m., the report said.

Sapstein was taken to Northwest Medical Center in Margate. She was still listed as being a patient there on Monday afternoon.

Broward County Circuit Judge Louis Schiff ordered Holly to be held on a $6,000 bond and to have no contact with Sapstein.

Schiff also prohibited Holly from taking care of any patients until her criminal case is resolved.

"Had it not been for the Good Samaritan, this could've been a whole different scenario," Schiff said.

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