MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A Duluth home care facility is accused of exploitation after using a video camera to catch an employee stealing from a client’s purse last May, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.
The incidents happened at the Lakeshore Home Care facility in Duluth. According to the complaint, a client of the facility and her family gave the approval for the facility to put a video camera in her room after several reports of missing money. The camera was put in the room on April 27, 2011, and $35 was put in a purse.
That money was regularly monitored and became missing on May 25, 2011. After review of the tape, the complaint states, the only person who had access to the purse between May 21, when the money was last seen, to May 25, was the alleged perpetrator.
The woman in question denied taking any money from the purse, but admitted to accessing the purse two times on May 21, according to the complaint. She got it the first time when the client asked her to check the balance of her checkbook, then again to do the same thing. The woman said the client was in the bathroom when she got in the purse.
Officials with the facility watched the video and saw that the money was missing after the woman got the purse. She was then terminated. The incident is still under investigation by the Minnesota Department of Health.
