JACKSON – After being arrested in May and charged with taking more than $40,000 from a residents’ trust fund, a nursing home employee has pleaded guilty to those charges in court. Sonya Coley, 27, of Jonestown, appeared before Coahoma County Circuit Court Judge Albert B. Smith, III, and entered an open plea of guilty to three counts of felony exploitation of vulnerable persons and three counts of felony embezzlement.
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said an open plea means Coley refused to accept the state’s recommended sentence and threw herself on the mercy of the court.
Hood said the courtroom was packed with wheelchair bound residents from the Greenbough Nursing Home who were victims of Coley’s crimes. Family members of the victims and several staff members from Greenbough also attended the court proceeding.
At the time of her crimes, Coley was employed as the Resident Trust Fund Coordinator/Payroll Clerk at Greenbough Nursing Home in Clarksdale. Coley admitted that she took more than $40,000 from the residents and the facility.
Judge Smith asked if Coley had repaid any of the money taken, and the court was told she had not.
Hood said after Coley pled, one of her victims, a 79-year old man confined to a wheelchair, told the judge that he had “worked too hard for his money to have someone he trusted take it from him.”
Hood said Greenbough’s administrator, Amanda Kirk, introduced every resident in attendance so “the court could put a face on the victims of Coley’s crimes.”
Another victim in attendance, a 105-year old woman, said she wanted to be at Coley’s plea hearing to witness the guilty pleas.
Coley’s victims, their family members and the Greenbough staff said they are hoping Judge Smith sentences Coley to prison, and they plan on attending her sentencing once the date has been set by Smith.
Coley faces a maximum of 60 years in prison and/or a $105,000 fine.
Be the first to comment