Additional jail time imposed upon elder fraud violator Martha Bell
February 20, 2018 3:18 PM
By Gary Rotstein / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Elder fraud offender and former nursing home administrator Martha Bell has been sentenced to additional jail time for violating terms of probation for her prior crimes.
Bell, 71, of West Mifflin, was issued two consecutive five-to-10-year prison terms Feb. 12 by Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge David R. Cashman. The start of those terms is credited back to Nov. 22, 2016, because she has been housed in the Allegheny County Jail since her arrest on that date.
At a previous court hearing on Dec. 14 for crimes of theft and receiving stolen property, Judge Cashman accepted Bell’s guilty plea and a plea bargain sentence that amounted to the time Bell had served in jail since her arrest 13 months earlier, plus financial restitution to Richard Chatak’s estate. Judge Cashman angrily scolded her at that time, however, for bilking $322,000 from the elderly Mt. Lebanon man. She admitted using false claims of having access to nursing home funds in order to obtain money from the since-deceased Mr. Chatak, with promises of enriching him later.
In presiding over two prior trials of Bell in 2007 and 2008 for crimes related to her operation of the now-defunct Ronald Reagan Atrium I Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Robinson, Judge Cashman’s sentencing included a condition of probation that she have no further involvement in any nursing home operations. Her original crimes included an involuntary manslaughter conviction for the death of a nursing home resident with dementia who had wandered undetected into an outdoor courtyard on a chilly night.
Gary Rotstein: grotstein@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1255.