A 37-year-old senior caregiver who had worked at the Right At Home agency and took a car and cash from a blind Villager, will have to surrender any license she holds for working with the elderly.
Sharon W. DeMarsh had been arrested this past December after a family member noticed that the 86-year-old woman’s grocery bill had increased by $500 per month after DeMarsh had been assigned as the woman’s non-medical caregiver.
It was also discovered that DeMarsh had been driving the woman’s 2014 red Buick. DeMarsh claimed she had used the car to run the woman’s errands, but an investigation revealed DeMarsh had allowed her 17-year-old son to drive the car, unbeknownst to the owner. It also was revealed that DeMarsh fled to North Carolina in the Buick during Hurricane Matthew, without the elderly woman’s permission. DeMarsh had contended that her own Mini Cooper had been involved in a “major accident,” but the unblemished Mini Cooper was spotted at the elderly woman’s home, an arrest report indicated.
DeMarsh was later arrested on an additional charge of impersonating a registered nurse.
She pleaded no contest in the case on June 19 in Lake County Court.
She has been ordered to make restitution of $12,702 to her former client, who was in court on the day DeMarsh was sentenced.
DeMarsh has been placed on 24 months probation and ordered to have no contact with her former client.
