COLONIAL HEIGHTS, Va. — Inside three search warrants filed in Colonial Heights Circuit Court on March 19 and 25 are details about alleged text communications between two Licensed Practical Nurses at the Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center.
One of the two has been charged with abuse of a vulnerable adult resulting in death, and the other had their falsifying patient records charge dismissed Wednesday.
According to the search warrants, Nurse One spoke about “removing 15 Zofran pills from the medication cart within the facility for Nurse Two and leaving them in their personal car for that nurse to pick up due to being sick.”
Zofran is an anti-nausea medication that requires a prescription.
In the same message chain, Nurse Two sent a message to Nurse One about administering medications to patients and stated “Been done. The people that can’t talk didn’t get s***. So it was easy.”
Nurse One replied, “s*** I do the same thing sometimes. They gonna be okay. And the ones who miserable get melatonin and tylenol.”
Nurse Two also asked Nurse One why they did not check on the resident to see if they were safe and Nurse One said, “to be honest I did not think much about it. I just thought it’s something you always do.”
And Nurse Two replied, “it is but it’s still risky coming back with pounds of drugs."
In another text conversation, Nurse Two told Nurse One “don’t let that notty head, pepper and garlic smelling, boiled egg with legs shape b**** get to you.”
Nurse One replied with a laughing face emoji and Nurse Two said “send the picture.”
Nurse one responded with a picture of a resident’s COVID order placed in the charting system by the facility’s medical director.
That resident is at the center of the criminal case who prosecutors allege received inadequate care which led to wounds and ultimately her death, and that’s who the detective who filed the search warrant wrote that text was about.
According to the search warrants, the nurses also discussed patients needing to be moved to different rooms because they were “beefing.” But the nurses told each other to note that there were no “issues” in the charts.
The search warrant also alleges that documents have been provided to the lead investigator and a nurse investigator with the Virginia Attorney General’s Office that show residents are being billed for services daily.
However, the residents were not actually being seen and the care was charted as being done, but it was not.
It states that “through a joint investigation with other agencies, the money billed through Medicare and Medicaid has a possible nexus to money laundering and or wire fraud, and “kickbacks” for fraudulent services not rendered.
WATCH: Criminal charges against Virginia nursing home staffers to be upgraded
Colonial Heights Commonwealth’s Attorney Gray Collins said Wednesday that more serious charges are coming and investigators have uncovered more victims.
We asked a spokesperson for Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, Mindie Barnett, for a response to the information detailed in the search warrant.
Barnett sent us the following statement:
“The case involves unsubstantiated allegations which did not lead to any arrests. The unsuccessful attempts by the prosecution are repeated measures of malicious slander to Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center which does not constitute news. The true information is that many of the charges against innocent these nurses were dropped. The sole case tried resulted in the charges being dismissed at the conclusion of the Commonwealth’s case.”
In response to that statement, prosecutors said there are still five staff members who have pending felony charges, two that have pending misdemeanor charges, and one who was charged with a misdemeanor and took a plea.
As for the case that resulted in charges being dismissed, that was the case against an attorney for the facility who prosecutors alleged had obstructed a detective with the police department and told her to leave when she attempted to gather medical records from the facility utilizing a search warrant.
That case “had nothing to do with the care of the victim,” Collins said.
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