What do You do When You Can't Steal From Your Practice? Lisa Campbell Stole From a Patient!

Florida woman is charged with stealing $45k from a patient of the practice where she worked.

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PALM BEACH GARDENS - Lisa Campbell, police say, handed a $45,000 check to a lawyer. She said the money, from a woman in her 90s whom Campbell had befriended, constituted gifts, but she felt bad and wanted to give it back.

It didn’t work. Campbell is charged with three counts each of grand theft of a person over 65, uttering a forgery instrument, and criminal use of personal identification.

Campbell, 60, of North Palm Beach was booked Nov. 12 at the Palm Beach County Jail. She left the next day after posting a $27,000 bond. A call to a telephone number listed for her in a police report was not returned.

According to the Palm Beach Gardens police report, Campbell told investigators Nov. 12 that the woman wrote her the checks because she “wanted to do something nice for her.”

When pressed by a detective, the report said, Campbell admitted to the fraud. She said she was having financial problems and needed the money.

The Palm Beach Post is not naming the older woman, who is now 94 years old. The report said she told investigators that she’d met Campbell, who was a dental assistant, during a visit to her dentist in 2017.

She said she and Campbell became friends and Campbell began to help her with errands and appointments. The woman said she never paid Campbell, saying “it was all done in friendship,” the report said.

The woman was hospitalized in June and eventually moved to an assisted living complex. Longtime friends who knew the woman from the New York area went to court and obtained guardianship. They began checking the woman’s bank records and found checks written to Campbell for $2,000, $25,000, and $20,000.

The report said detectives later showed the alleged victim the checks, and she said, “Oh. She went for the gold.” She said she’d have no reason to write the checks to Campbell and the signatures were not hers.

In August, Michael W. Connors, a Juno Beach elder law attorney who represented the guardians, sent Campbell a “demand letter” for anything she had belonging to the woman.

Connors said Monday that Campbell came to his office with a personal check for $45,000.

“She handed it to me and said, ‘I feel bad that I didn’t mention these gifts,’ ” Connors said Monday.

Connors also said guardians cannot find cash and jewelry that had been in the alleged victim’s home, which had been empty since she went to the assisted-living complex.

“We’re at a loss as to how to pursue that,” Connors said.

He said the woman still is financial able to support herself but, “It’s still a terrible act. Like stealing candy from a baby. Maybe worse.”

Court records show Campbell was convicted in 2000 of grand theft and organized scheme to defraud more than $20,000 and was sentenced to 18 months of probation.

A Palm Beach Gardens report said the dentist for whom she worked at the time alleged she wrote herself $25,000 on company checks, and also made as many as 50 fraudulent purchases on his credit card. The report said Campbell later confessed.

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Content retrieved from https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20191119/police-friendrsquo-wrote-45000-in-checks-to-herself-on-older-womanrsquos-account

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Editor's note: A search of Florida criminal records reveals that a woman with the same name and birthdate as Lisa Campbell, living in the Palm Beach area, was charged four times for felony theft and fraud offenses in the years 1999 to 2000. This underscores the need to do a proper criminal records check as part of the hiring process.

First and Last Name Lisa J Campbell
Booked Sep. 27, 2000
Source Palm Beach County Sheriff'S Office - Arrest Records (Florida)
Charge 83102 - Utter Forged Instrument; 812014 2c - Grand Theft; 817034 3d - Organized Schemed to Defraud

First and Last Name Lisa J Campbell
Offense Oct. 10, 2000
Source Palm Beach Courts (Florida)
Charges/Offenses Grand Theft | Organized Scheme to Defraud>$20, 000

First and Last Name Lisa J Campbell
Offense Jun. 1, 1999
Source Dept Of Corrections (Florida)
Charges/Offenses Org.fraud - $20, 000 - 50, 000 | Grand Theft, 300 L/5, 000

First and Last Name Lisa J Campbell
Offense Aug. 26, 2000
Source Palm Beach Courts (Florida)
Charge/Offense Conversion: (812.014 (1, 2c)/ / /F/000/78 ) (Prob - X) Grand Theft