NEW CASTLE Woman faces charges over pension money

The woman's children did not know their mother was receiving pension benefits.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Angeline Ostapowicz says money she got from pension checks sent to her aunt was a gift from the elderly woman, but the state says the money should have paid for the woman's nursing-home care.
Ostapowicz, 74, of Blunston Avenue, cared for 94-year-old Mary DeRosa Holquin for about 20 years before the woman was placed in an Alzheimer's care facility in New Castle. Holquin gave Ostapowicz the pension checks because she considered Ostapowicz to be more of a daughter than niece, said Dennis Elisco, Ostapowicz's attorney.
Deputy Attorney General L. Todd Goodwin, however, said Ostapowicz kept the pension checks secret from Holquin's children after their mother went into an Alzheimer's care facility in New Castle. That money should have been used to help pay for her care -- which was mostly being paid for by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, he said.
Charges were filed last week by the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office after an investigation by the AG's criminal unit and the Pennsylvania Inspector General's Office. The charges pertain to about $9,600 paid from the pension fund after Holquin was placed in the Silver Oaks Nursing Center and the welfare department started paying for her care.
District Justice Melissa Amodie bound over charges of theft and forgery to Lawrence County Common Pleas Court.
Ostapowicz does not face criminal charges for any pension money cashed before her aunt went into the nursing home.
Asked for money: After welfare officials learned of the pension benefits, Brian Cupp, an investigator with the state Inspector General's office, said he wrote Ostapowicz a letter asking for the money to be returned to the welfare department, but received no response.
Holquin's son, Michael DeRosa, 75, testified Friday that he was unaware of the pension fund until he was contacted by the Department of Public Welfare.
Ostapowicz said she helped her aunt get the money, which was widow's benefits from her estranged husband's pension from the Los Angeles Water and Power Co. in California. Holquin started getting the money sometime in 1997.
Ostapowicz testified that her aunt wanted to keep the pension money a secret from her two sons and had the checks mailed to Ostapowicz's house.
"She told me she didn't want the checks to go to her home. The boys would always take her money. She didn't have any money to spend. She didn't have control of her checkbook," Ostapowicz said.
What prosecutors say: Prosecutors said Ostapowicz started cashing the $700 monthly checks and using the money for her own expenses after her aunt was admitted into St. Francis Hospital in October 1997. The woman eventually went to Silver Oaks Nursing Home, an Alzheimer's care facility.
Ostapowicz said her aunt signed papers giving her power of attorney over her finances while she was in the hospital.
"She called me and told me she wanted to give me power of attorney. She didn't want to go in the nursing home," Ostapowicz testified.
Prosecutors, however, said Holquin was admitted to the hospital after being found confused and disoriented. She was later determined to be suffering from Alzheimer's disease and is now unresponsive to family and others, said Special Agent Jack Brickner, a criminal investigator for the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office.
Defense argument: Ostapowicz's attorney argued that prosecutors offered no evidence to disprove his client's claims that her aunt gave her the pension checks as a gift.
Prosecutors said Ostapowicz continued to cash the checks even after getting word that Holquin was declared legally incompetent in Lawrence County Common Pleas Court, and her son, Michael, was appointed Holquin's guardian.
"In March of 1998 when she finds out that Michael DeRosa is appointed his mother's guardian, she is supposed to tell them about the pension checks. How does she think the nursing home is being paid?" Goodwin said.
District Justice Amodie agreed.
Mary Holquin "went to a nursing home and that money should have gone there," Amodie said.