Vann faces new charges after confession
Ending 14 months of accusation and denial, a former manager at a Coeur d’Alene assisted living center confessed to a detective two weeks ago that she stole $3,000 from an elderly resident after gaining power of attorney and access to the woman’s bank account.
Mary Jane Vann, who was fired from Fairwinds Retirement Community in June 2003 for not having a license to manage an assisted care facility, outlined a scheme to take money from Lucille Huber, a former resident, that may have involved two other Fairwinds employees.
One of the two other employees “was going to take Huber to the bank and have Lucille get some money and then we were going to split the money,” according to a signed confession Vann gave to a Coeur d’Alene Police detective on June 22.
Vann has been in the Kootenai County Jail for several months after confessing earlier this year to stealing two rings, valued at $30,000, from a second resident of Fairwinds.
Vann, who has already pleaded guilty to stealing the rings from Mary B. Honeyman, who is 84 and blind, now faces two new theft charges filed Monday by Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas in the wake of her most recent confession. Vann confessed to taking hundreds of dollars in cash on two occasions from Huber after winning the woman’s confidence and gaining control of her finances.
Vann is scheduled to appear July 26 before 1st District Court Judge Fred Gibler.
The former manager also faces a lawsuit filed by former Fairwinds residents who contend they were overmedicated and manipulated into turning over money or power of attorney to Vann. A mediation hearing in the lawsuit, which also names Fairwinds’ parent company, Leisure Care, is scheduled this week in Bonner County.
A second Fairwinds employee, Mary Ward, also was charged Monday with grand theft based on information from the confession. Ward was placed on administrative leave by Fairwinds on Wednesday. Among the charges against Ward is one stemming from a trip to a furniture store where, court records state, Fairwinds workers posed as Huber’s relatives and purchased hundreds of dollars worth of furnishings that are now unaccounted for.
On June 22, Vann was visited in jail by Coeur d’Alene Police Det. Tracy Martin and offered to confess. Police documents show she signed a form indicating she had been read her Miranda Rights and still wished to speak to Martin without an attorney present.
Several times during the confession, Martin, who scrambled to borrow a tape recorder, asked Vann why she suddenly decided to talk.
“I’m being made out to be this horrible monster, and I’m not,” Vann said early in the interview. Near the end, she elaborated: “I’ve been sitting here in jail and I’ve had nothing to do but think about all the wrong things I’ve done. I’m ashamed. I can’t live with myself. … And I know the things that are being said about me. Some of them are true and some of them aren’t.”
During the confession, Vann implicated a third Fairwinds employee and a local attorney as having involvement in awarding Vann power of attorney over Huber, cutting out a daughter that Huber was arguing with, Vann said.
Vann said she went to the bank with Huber, closed out a checking account that contained more than $7,000 and took the money back to Fairwinds, where it was used for rent. Vann told Martin she didn’t steal any of that money.
She did say Ward and the third employee would go to the bank with Huber and sometimes come back with extra cash they handed to Vann – $2,100 on one occasion and $900 another time.