Richmond Woman Faces Charges of Nursing Home Abuse after Alleged Kidnapping Plot

Berkeley, CAA 51-year-old Richmond woman faces a nursing home abuse lawsuit stemming from allegations that she stole more than $50,000 from six elderly patients, including one woman whom she kidnapped.

Concepcion "Connie" Pinco Giron was working as an assistant administrator at the Elmwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Berkeley in August 2009 when the state attorney general's Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse began receiving complaints.

Giron allegedly informed her supervisor that 85-year-old Carnell Williams was transferring to another nursing facility, but instead moved the woman into her own home, where she began collecting the woman's pension and social security checks for herself. Williams was fed and cared for during her incarceration and has since been moved to a licensed care home, according to the Mercury News.

The Department of Justice also claims that Giron transferred money from the bank accounts of five other nursing home residents into her personal account, wrote checks to herself from the patient's accounts and used their ATM cards.

"This is a shocking case of nursing home abuse and a gross violation of trust," said state Attorney General Jerry Brown in statement published in the San Francisco Chronicle.