After a delay due to a problem with a notice to prosecutors, the daughter of a local magisterial district judge admitted Tuesday in Schuylkill County Court that she stole more than $21,000 from a nursing home resident for whom she was caring.
Jennifer L. Ferrier, 39, of Cressona, pleaded guilty to theft, receiving stolen property and access device fraud in connection with the thefts from Lois Fells.
Judge Cyrus Palmer Dolbin accepted Ferrier's plea and ordered preparation of a presentence investigation but did not immediately schedule sentencing.
"That will take place within 60 days," Dolbin said.
Ferrier faces a maximum possible sentence of seven to 14 years in a state correctional institution and payment of $30,000 in fines and $21,117.62 restitution, Dolbin said.
Neither Ferrier nor her lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Andrea L. Thompson, had any comment Tuesday on the case.
State police at Schuylkill Haven have charged Ferrier, a home health care aide, with obtaining the debit card of Fells, 81, a resident of Luther Ridge Nursing Home, Pottsville, and using it at various county stores to get cash and buy gasoline, gifts and groceries from October 2012 through Jan. 6.
"Did you, in fact, do those things?" Dolbin asked Ferrier.
"Yes," Ferrier said.
Ferrier had been hired to transport Fells to and from appointments and to help with shopping and other errands, police said.
Fells' bank notified her Jan. 6 that she had insufficient funds in her account to cover the transactions, police said. Fells' card was used at Sheetz stores in Pottsville and Schuylkill Haven, Wal-Mart Supercenter in Saint Clair, Giant grocery stores and Exxon gasoline stations, as well as numerous ATMs along Route 61, according to police.
Ferrier had been scheduled to plead guilty June 19 before Judge Charles M. Miller but no one from the state attorney general's office, which is prosecuting the case, appeared for the hearing. However, no one had notified the attorney general's office that the hearing had been scheduled for that date.
State prosecutors are handling the case because the defendant's father is Magisterial District Judge James R. Ferrier, and District Attorney Karen Byrnes-Noon believed it would be a conflict of interest to have any members of her office, some of whom appear in front of the judge on a regular basis, work on the case.