Nursing Home Employee Arrested for Abusing 88 Year-old Resident

Authorities say she grabbed the resident by the collar and forcefully dragged the elderly woman into the woman's room.

TALLAHASSEE, FL - Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced the  arrest of a Broward County woman on charges she abused an elderly nursing  home resident under her care. Karlene Brown was arrested this morning by  law enforcement officers with the Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud  Control Unit. Brown, 39, was employed as a Certified Nursing Assistant by  Bay Pointe Terrace, an assisted living facility in Broward County.

The arrest resulted from an investigation by the Attorney General's  Medicaid Fraud Control Unit's Patient Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation (PANE) team, acting on information received from the Department of  Children and Families. According to investigators, Brown became angered at an 88-year-old resident who suffers from dementia. She grabbed the resident by the collar and forcefully dragged the elderly woman into the woman's room. The events were captured by a video recorder which was in  the resident's room.

Brown will be booked into the Broward County jail. She is charged with one count of abuse of an elderly person, a third-degree felony. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. The case will be  prosecuted by the State Attorney's Office for the 17th Judicial Circuit.