Health aide caught on camera stealing cash at dying patient’s DC home, feds say
A home health aide providing hospice care was caught on camera stealing $100 bills that her dying patient’s wife had put away in a kitchen drawer, federal prosecutors said.
The older couple’s security camera at their Washington, D.C., residence recorded Beverly Ochoa pocketing the $2,600 in her purse the night of Oct. 1, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
Now, a D.C. Superior Court judge has issued a 12-month suspended sentence to Ochoa, 30, of Derwood, Maryland, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a May 16 news release.
Ochoa, who pleaded guilty to first-degree theft on Feb. 28, might not serve prison time, as suspended sentences allow defendants to avoid incarceration if they stick to conditions ordered by a judge, Cornell Law School explains online.
Her suspended sentence involves one year of supervised probation with 40 hours of community service and three years of supervised release, according to prosecutors.
Ochoa’s defense attorney, Henry Escoto, didn’t immediately return McClatchy News’ request for comment.
Ochoa was one of two health aides hired to care for the D.C. man at his home, where he lived with his wife in the city’s Southeast region, prosecutors said. Ochoa and the other caregiver worked for separate companies.
On Oct. 1, with Ochoa at their home, the man’s wife walked downstairs looking to pay the other health aide, according to prosecutors.
But the other worker had already left, Ochoa told his wife, prosecutors said.
The woman then put $2,600 to pay the caregiver inside a drawer, then left the house to attend a medical appointment, according to prosecutors.
Following her appointment, she returned home and saw the cash was no longer there, prosecutors said.
The couple’s family visited the home and played the footage from the residence’s security camera, which revealed Ochoa putting something from the kitchen into her purse, according to prosecutors.
The family called authorities, who located $2,600 in $100 bills inside Ochoa’s purse, prosecutors said. Then she was arrested.
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