Care home worker stole patients’ rings

KITTANNING, Pa. (AP) — A former employee of a western Pennsylvania personal care home will spend two years on probation for stealing rings from three patients, which she sold to get money to buy heroin.

Twenty-three-year-old Jennifer Lee Booher, of Kittanning, was sentenced Tuesday by a judge in Armstrong County, before whom she had pleaded guilty to theft in May.

A former co-worker told police that she drove Booher to a jewelry store last November so Booher could sell some rings. The co-worker says she bought three of the rings for $65 and Ford City police say Booher sold seven others to the store for $160.

The co-worker alerted police about the rings Booher sold after the co-worker heard a rumor that some patients’ rings had been reported missing. Police say Booher admitted selling them to support her drug habit.