Theft payback will go to women’s shelter

The theft of more than $20,000 from an elderly Spokane couple by the woman who was supposed to be caring for them could wind up benefiting a local women’s shelter.

Sharmain Reuben was ordered this month to pay $4,000 to Anna Ogden Hall, in restitution for theft from Arnold and Lois Barnes.

Reuben was the in-home caregiver for Arnold Barnes for several years before he died in February 2003 at age 84, his son Mark Barnes said Wednesday.

The elder Barnes, one of the founders of National Furniture Store, had always been careful about watching his finances, his son said. He continued living in his home and came to work at the store every day until he died. But in the last four or five months of his life he wasn’t paying attention to some things and “letting his bills slip.”

Reuben was given permission to use Arnold Barnes’ credit card to buy groceries at Safeway. After Barnes died, however, bills came in showing charges totaling as much as $2,000 a month at the supermarket, including $800 on Christmas Eve when Arnold Barnes was out of town, Mark Barnes said. There was also a wide range of charges the family was sure the elder Barnes didn’t make, such as hundreds of dollars at a nail salon, tickets to a rap concert and bras at a lingerie store.

The charges were discovered by his children after he died. Lois Barnes, who was in a nursing home, also died, which would have made proving lack of consent difficult at a trial, said Deputy County Prosecutor Patrick T. Johnson Jr.

Eventually, Johnson reached a plea bargain with Reuben, who has no prior record. In exchange for a guilty plea in April to third-degree theft, she was placed on two years’ probation and ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution.

It’s only a fraction of what the family believes was taken, but Mark Barnes and his sister Pam Daniels, the Snohomish County clerk, asked that the money be paid to Ogden Hall. Their mother had always taught them there was a right way and a wrong way to treat women, and the shelter protects women who haven’t been treated the right way, Mark Barnes said.

In his eight years as a prosecutor, it was the first time a victim ever asked to have restitution sent to a charity, Johnson said Wednesday.

Reuben will be allowed to make small monthly payments. Mark Barnes is skeptical that it will all be repaid, but at least some good will come of it, he said.

“To me, the moral of the story is you can’t trust anybody,” he said.