Former nurse from Bergen given probation following second conviction on grand larceny

"Noonan didn't buy any of it."

Then gives her probation. For stealing $14,000.00.

People that steal $100.00 from Walmart get worse. Not saying that they should not be punished - and harshly - but Case was convicted on these charges twice by two separate juries and STILL refuses to accept responsibility for her actions.

I hope that if I ever get before a judge it is this one! Let's all give everyone third and fourth chances and then more after that! I don't even understand how he made a decision on Frost Ridge without all the facts in! But that is just me!!!

Let me start off by saying that I do not know Ms. Case personally. I have read a lot of her comments and statements in this and other forums. She gives me the impression that she is highly intelligent individual however has the personally flaw that she can't accept any wrong doings on her part. I have known people like her in my life time. They are manipulative and twist the truth to shed the blame off their shoulders on to others. I am glad to see the Judge Noonan has the common sense to see through her carefully concocted story.

Hospice was fully staffed with 2 nurses in Genesee county and 2 in Wyoming co. In Dec 2008, the other Batavia nurse went on 12 weeks medical leave and both Warsaw nurses quit the next week, leaving me alone to cover all the patients in 2 counties. I was forced to work 12+ hours a day every day. At the end of the week my supervisor told me they would pay me for all the extra hours I had to work to keep up and had me document the hours in the call out section. If I had quit, they would have been forced to close by the NYS Health Dept. When you don't have nurses, it is called UNSAFE PATIENT CARE! I agreed to stay in their hour of need when they AGREED to pay me for doing the work of 4 nurses, not because I wanted to work 80 hours a week for the price of 35. Now my former supervisor lies and denies telling me how to document my timesheet to get paid for ALL THOSE HOURS, ALL THOSE MONTHS. Now they say I stole so they can get it back? How do I get those hours back? And all the extra childcare costs I incurred so I could work that late every day? Shame on you Howard! You can twist it pretty good, huh? I know you were handed a copy of my statement. I accepted their $30,000 salary when I could have worked anywhere else for double the amount, because I wanted to do hospice care. I was much loved by my patients. I went on call every other week and ran everyone else's call outs to earn more to supplement the low salary so I could feel like I was giving back, yet make a living. I worked over 60 hours a week on average doing call outs in addition to regular work time. Hospice made all those ridiculous rules that made call outs NOT call outs during my last month there, to save a few bucks. Visits after work hours are the definition of a call out! The new rules made them unpaid visits. Another new rule required nurses to stay in the patient home to get paid for their documentation. On the lengthy admission visits, I stayed in the patient home for about 2 hours, spending up to 5 more hours in the office to document the rest of the visit, complete the care plan, the aide care plan and add all the meds. I had no reason not to stay in the patient home except I was never told I had to. FYI: Admission visits only took 4-5 hours in the other agency I worked for, but hospice never got the kinks out of their program until the month after I left. That is when the labor board came in and they had to make some changes, including those rules. By applying the rules retroactively to me alone (nobody else was singled out, but nobody else reported them to the labor board either), they stole thousands from me. Over $14,000 and now more, as restitution is set at over $25,000. They told Larry Friedman that those rules were "always" in effect, but they screwed up in their testimony, because they forgot to appoint someone to be the person responsible for telling me the rules...H.R. claimed I was told by nursing, nursing put it back on H.R. ! WHOOPS!! This was the colossal mistake, because it clearly shows I could not possibly be aware of rules nobody told me about! They have 4 written call out policies, yet none of the new rules are mentioned in them. As I said, because they were new rules. They did all the rest of the underhanded things I mentioned too. They are a vindictive organization and they shattered our lives forever.

Michelle, shut UP! Good lord, at some point get a self-conscience, admit to being less than honest and have some class and except your punishment. Your continued nonsense only irritates people and makes you look like a clown. In fact, a clown with horrible make up. How about some apologizes to the folks you cause so much stress for no reason? Of course not. I hear a high horse coming.

I think Michele Case should take up the violin.

A comment was deleted due to foul language.

Two different juries did not buy any of her excuses. Maybe you got a raw deal one time, but when a second jury agrees with the first, give it up and get a new story.

Since you've chosen to open your mouth about this again, maybe the District Attorney could look into this case again for your actions for admitting fault. Just how ignorant can you be? Now you've said it on public record, without your attorney and have no care to what you've just admitted? Have you just realized what you just did?

Madam, you just gave the state another reason to open this case back up. Mrs. Owens, I sure hope you will pass this back to them!

I did edit the comment, per Howard's email. I knew it would be taken down anyway, I just hope the guilty person saw it.

Lol, at taking up the violin.

And why mention her children. I am sure they are already humiliated enough. Poor kids

LMAO Billie!!!

Have you and Howard made any progress on finding out why some of us can't vote on comments right now? I know you are busy working on the new web site (it's gonna be cool for folks in Wyoming county BTW) but am hoping you've made some progress on a solution for us.

<No charge for the plug) Heeheehee!!!!!!!

If there was a situation of wage theft, the proper action would have been reporting the illegal labor activity to the authorities.

As for the rest of Ms. Case's defense, for better or worse, tl;dr....

I never claimed this was not my fault. If I had not been so vocal about the new rules, if I hadn't contacted the labor board or sued hospice in small claims court, I would not be in this position today. I have only written the facts, and only facts that can be proved. I was very careful not to use opinion or facts that cannot be proved for fear of retaliation. I haven't said anything here that wasn't in my statement that I read in court, and as such, it is a matter of record. If the D.A. wants to investigate, I can only encourage him to do so, Lisa. Unfortunately, the detective chose not to investigate as he believed hospice's story. That was his testimony. He could have spoken to other nurses, unfortunately for me, the most important one is now deceased. He could have gone to hospice and reviewed their records himself to check the accuracy of my claims. Hospice also said I claimed call outs that were not in the computer record. Homecare visits were on paper and did not get entered into the computer until 2010. Hospice intro visits were always on paper. It is very frustrating because I even remember some of the names of clients on those paper visits. When I tried to get the labor board to intervene and get those records, I was told that since the police were involved, they presume an investigation is being done and they would not help me. I do not take offense to anything said here against me. It is the situation I am in and people are bound not to understand. I kind of hope someone with power will read my words, someone with the ability to check out my claims, even if they do so initially with the intent to disprove them. I do find it remarkable that nobody commented on the fact that hospice's witnesses contradicted each other on something so important to their case. Remember, they said the rules were always the rules. H.R. did not teach me these at orientation because she testified that those rules were "specific to nursing" and would have been told to me by my nursing supervisor. Yet when my supervisor testified, she said that I would have been told at orientation! That explains why all the nurses thought they were new rules. If they were to now give me back the time these rules eliminated, that would be the majority of the $14,000. As for my children, my eldest just turned 18 and is attending a University to become a police officer. He is a very good kid and I am proud of him. He is well aware of the long hours I worked for hospice and all the time I spent on my laptop at home. He was very insistent that I not accept the misdemeanor plea deal. My youngest is 12 and will be starting 8th grade soon. I am thankful for his sake that I was not put in prison, but I am not going to admit to something I did not do just to gain favor in sentencing.

I cannot vote. Just adding to your list.

You still don't get the point do you Michele Case? Why don't you take the money you spend on internet, sitting on your behind and pay back what you've stolen from these people! You have a moral obligation "IF" you feel any guilt for what you did. You also have to quit involving your children as a scapegoat! They didn't make you do anything. They are victims of your crime also. You are a thief. You stole money. It should be paid back. Quit being a martyr and take responsibility and pull your big girl panties up. No one "MADE" you do what you did. Grow the hell up and be an example to your children. Don't show them HOW to do wrong. Show them how to RIGHT a WRONG.

For the record, I can't vote or I'd have given a big fat -10 for Michele Case' pitty party. The Violin... 10!

The problem with your "story" Michele is that I'm sure the detectives did indeed investigate your claims against the HR and company. To do otherwise would be to ignore very basic investigative procedure. I'm almost positive the DA did this as well. From first blush you might be believeable but once it's in the investigators hands your claims fall apart. It was obvious to the detectives, the DA and the jury on 2 occasions.

You see it tarnishes their reputation if they DONT have all the facts and it would seem stupid on their part not to investigate your version as you could bring state and federal agencies to look into your claims after this trial. But while I dont have that much faith in our federal or state agencies, I don't think that our police and DA's office didn't check thouroghly your claims and proved them false. Not to do so would be beyond stupid and incompetant of them.

On the voting... I agree with Lisa and others ....

Pity Party -10
Violins +10

The role of the police investigator is to gather sufficient evidence to prosecute. The role of the DA is to convict. There is hope (and legal imperative) that should either investigator or DA recognize evidence conflicting with their case against a defendant such evidence might be provided to the defense (discovery). There is also considerable history of concealing redeeming evidence (mistrial). It should also be noted that the defense generally must apply for evidence via a discovery request. It would be naive to think that police investigators and DAs always keep the potential innocence of the accused in mind prior to trial. If that were true, we wouldn't see exoneration rates as high as 4%. 317 death row inmates have been exonerated by DNA evidence since testing became possible. ...Neither would we read stories like this: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/16/nyregion/former-state-trooper-explain…

Who are the agencies? As I said, I tried to get the labor board involved but they turned me down when I told them there was a detective involved. There was only one detective, and the court record doesn't lie, his testimony was that he did not investigate because he believed hospice. I begged him over and over to please investigate this, and this can be evidenced by the secret recording he made. He did not interview any nurses or even go to Olean where their records were. I assumed they were saying I stole because they were using the new rules against me, because they denied me workers comp because of the first rule, and to do so they had to apply it retroactively as the rules were first mentioned when I came back from my recuperation period. I did not know what other claims they were making, nor could I since it is all crap. Please tell me what agencies I can contact. I am writing to the Innocense Project, but I am afraid they may not help because there are innocent people in prison for murder and this is just a single larceny charge. I am here for info, and the derogatory comments don't phase me. Thank you if you can help!

You are right CM they don't HAVE to investigate Michele's claims. However as she has proven here she really thinks she is the victim here. If other agencies with the state and federal Govt find that she has been a victim that was used as a scapegoat I do believe they are in a position where they can be sued for neglecting to investigate the possibility. Thats why if the detective did not investigate as she said I'm sure the DA must have as most lawyers don't want their rear ends hanging out in the breeze. Remember they are supposed to prove their case "beyond a reasonable doubt" it's very obvious that Michele isnt gonna let this rest.

Dear C.M.:
It is naïve to think that police investigators and DA's always keep the potential innocence of the accused in mind prior to trial. DNA evidence will not help me, and my case is small potatoes to death row inmates! The important thing to take home here is that so many people are falsely convicted. Unfortunately, hospice is able to conceal my paper visits because nobody is going in there and retrieving the evidence. I have no doubt the so-called detective is unaware there are paper charts, he never investigated. He made a comment in the hearing prior to the trial, something like, "She claimed visits that don't even exist!" You know what he was thinking! I was told by another nurse that she overheard my supervisor when they found visits that I accidentally used the wrong date for. She laughed and said they could call these visits "not made" since they were not on the same date as documented on paper. They found them, but chose to ignore them. This nurse was upset about the whole thing and told me she told them what she thought of their tactics in no uncertain terms. I told my lawyer about this, and when he cross examined my supervisor, he asked if sometimes don't the visits have the wrong date because the nurse works on them over a period of time that the date changes if she doesn't manually correct it? Her response was, "Nurses learn in Nursing 101, that if it isn't documented, it isn't done!" It is her job as supervisor to correct errors like this. She clearly felt no ethical obligation to do so.
They also claimed I made call outs during work hours. That SOUNDS damning, until you realize that all they did was tag every visit started before 4:30pm (the office closes at 4:30pm). By comparing my timesheets, you realize that my actual work hours varied, and my (PREAPPROVED by my supervisor) work hours ended prior to the start time of these visits. They didn't have to pick ME to do these visits, but they chose to. Thank you for your opinion.

Dear Lisa. Sorry I did not get the chance to respond to you yesterday. I do not have internet of my own! I make minimum wage and obviously cannot afford it. The Judge made a mistake when he said I did not pay restitution, I did! However, when I was laid off from my full time job I was only employed part time, earning about $50 a week, and had to pay for my medicine and gas to go to probation, work, therapy, court, and job hunting. The order of restitution was later stayed. Now that a new one has been issued, I will do my best to pay, but at $500 a month, it will be impossible to pay it as ordered so I will again be in court on a violation of probation. As long as they make everything out of reach for me I will be in trouble. As for your comments, four years ago I got a call from school and the principal told me my then 8 year old admitted to him that he smoked marijuana before school! I was immediately upset knowing that was a load of crap! I asked him WHERE my son was and he said he was in his office. I told him I would be right in, and that he was to immediately send my son to class and STOP the interrogation. I said I was more afraid of the damage he was causing my son by making him admit to something he did not do! When I arrived, my son was still in his office. I explained to the principal that I put my son on the bus every morning, and unless he was smoking marijuana on the bus, he was WRONG! Besides the fact my son did not even know what marijuana was. I had contacted our doctor from work before going to the school, and arranged to have my son drug tested, to PROVE he did not do drugs. I felt it necessary since I expected the next thing would be them calling child protective services. I later had my son attend counseling, assuming he would have issues because of this whole episode. When we were home, I asked my son what happened. He had been spoken to by three school officials and they made him feel very intimidated. Because they kept reassuring him that everything would be alright if he just admitted he smoked marijuana, he finally broke and admitted it. I had to explain to him that you never admit to something you did not do just because someone is telling you to. Knowing last week that I was likely facing jail when I went in for sentencing, I spoke to my son. I told him that because I would not admit to something I did not do, they would likely put me in jail or prison. Of course he did not want me in jail, so he asked me to say I did it just to avoid going to jail. We cried together as I reminded him of his experience, and I said that while this would be a hard thing for both of us, it is never ok to admit to something you did not do. I hold my head high, and I am very proud of the person I am and of my character. A martyr? NO. Just a person who holds herself to certain standards, and one who teaches her children the same.

Oh my Michelle, you certainly are a sad sack now aren't you. The whole entire world is just plotting against you. I mean the police chase you to give you tickets for using a cell phone while driving when you were really drinking pepsi. You were falsely accused of vandalizing a mail box. Stole money from an elderly lady whose son you were dating, errrr I mean "set up." Then there was the school bus incident. Wow, it is so unfathomable how the world is out to get you. Are you god?

who set you up this time.

http://thebatavian.com/blogs/howard-owens/bergen-woman-accused-stealing…

Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Lori. The common theme amongst all of these situations is "they" are out to get Ms. Case at all costs. Ms. Case must be some sort of CIA operative...she certainly lives and lurks in the shadowy periphery of life, oblivious to reality.

SHE DID NOTHING WRONG. (I caps, therefore true).

Denial, its not just a river in egypt...and apparently reaches all the way over to western NY.

OMG Lorie, get a grip! I never got any tickets because I wasn't on a cell phone and could prove it. The only reason I ever brought it up was to show people that while everyone makes mistakes, that policewoman insisted, "I KNOW what I saw!" when she obviously saw pepsi! As for the rest of the accusations, I have no need to defend myself against charges that were all thrown out. As far as the world being out to get me, I don't think so. Was I targeted a bit? I think so. The detective that was assigned to investigate this case smiled wide and said,"You've been in trouble before!" He was very excited about it, just as excited as he was later when he was trying to accuse me of things that "sounded" bad. Do I think the D.A. is out to get me? Absolutely. Hospice's financial offices are in Olean, Catt County. My timesheets were sent there and my paycheck came from there. That is where this case should have been tried. Instead, hospice knew I was having some strange legal troubles here, and they knew that a Batavia detective would not likely go to Olean to check their records. Besides, I was told that hospice has been in court on several occasions in Catt County and I was told they have (lack of) credibility issues there. I don't get why you are so convinced of my guilt? I have shared the facts of this case with several people of different educational backgrounds, and they all agree the prosecution's theory is idiotic. I will try to S-P-E-L-L it out for you. THINK about it...lets pretend that the new rules they made were "always" the rules. 1. Why are they not in writing when clearly all the other policies are in writing? Isn't that kind of unbelievable? 2. Why would the HR person say that it was up to Nursing to share these rules with us and then the ONLY nurse who would have says it was told to us at orientation. This was in July 2014! You mean to tell me that 6 years AFTER I should have been told these rules, they STILL have nobody assigned to share these rules with nurses?? OK. Let me first tell you what we were told a call out was: any visit performed after work hours initiated as a result of a call from the answering service, OR a planned visit after work hours that is approved by the supervisor. Rule #1: You must stay in the patient home to complete all visits, and you must stay in the patient home to document the visit or you will not be paid for your documentation. When we enter a visit in the computer, there is travel time, direct time and indirect time. Direct is time in the home, indirect time is elsewhere. Clearly, if you want to be paid for all your time, you will have to spend all your time in the home, and therefore you would document all the visit time under "direct" time, with a big fat 0 in indirect time, right? NONE of my call out visits have zeros under indirect time, in fact, my indirect time is up to 3x more than the documented direct time. If I were going to steal, wouldn't I at least document all my time in the direct column to "pretend" I stayed in the home whether I did or not? Without the rule however, all the work done on the visit would be listed in both categories, as I did. Then that total figure would be listed in the call out section of the timesheet, as I did. Rule #2: A visit performed IMMEDIATELY following work hours is NOT a call out, but an extension of the workday for which you can earn flex time. Just how long is immediately anyways? It may be 15 minutes to one person, an hour and a half to another! If you have a call out from the service, you have to go right then, but a planned visit can be scheduled anytime. According to my timesheets, I almost always did planned visits immediately after work hours. Does that sound like I was aware of the new rule? Many of these visits were 7 hour admissions. Why not have a cup of coffee for 20 minutes THEN go do the visit? But again, I always went right after work... according to the D.A., so I could steal pay that I would be entitled to if I waited 20 minutes? Does that REALLY sound logical? And if I was to earn flex time (time I could take off during the work day) why did I never add any flex time onto my timesheet? If I was going to steal pay, why wouldn't I take the earned flex time also? And WHY would my supervisor not ask why I wasn't taking any flex time off? "Voluntary call outs" were visits performed by a nurse that was NOT the person getting paid the stipend for being on call all week. It was $2 to $3 MORE than the hourly sum paid for call out visits. My supervisor always came to me first to offer me these as I did 99% of them to earn extra money. Many of them were the 7 hour admission visits I spoke of. Because hospice applied the new rule retroactively, the pay I received for this work was effectively taken away. According to the D.A., because I stole that money. But, if the rule always was the rule, seems I would be smart enough to wait a little while, doesn't it? Why would I continue to do all these "free" visits? Would anyone else do free visits? On average, I did 3 of these per week. Wouldn't the supervisor think I was nuts? If you people can't figure this out now, I give up.

^nuts

Lmao, yeah michele...the detective must have been super duper excited to see you. The sad thing is you do not see how ridiculous you are.

LOL Lorie dont you just love it.... She supposedly "shared" her side of the story with different people and they agree with her. Yet two juries and a judge who have ALL the facts of the case, did not. I think her statement above should be amended to reflect reality and say...

"I have shared the facts of this case with several people of different educational backgrounds, and they all agree Michele Case's theory is idiotic.

Honestly Michele, you want us to believe your intelligent enough to be aware of facts. However in all your rants you dont give us facts you give us hearsay and opinions. He said this, she said that they think this, they think that. I think maybe you should consider farming, especially with the amounts of fertilizer you have at your disposal.

Kyle, you are the idiot! You have NO IDEA what that Judge thinks. The Judge HAS TO go with what the jury decides, regardless of what he thinks. It would be most improper for him to say ANYTHING supportive of the defendant. Try looking up judge in the dictionary. You were not there, and you do not know ALL he said, nor what others said. The evidence that was submitted by the prosecution in the first trial was so biased, anyone would have thought I was guilty, and the appeals lawyer found those records were mistake ridden to such an extent, the appeals board threw out the case. They also ruled I had "ineffective counsel." If I had testified in the first trial, the D.A. would try to ruin my credibility by mentioning I was charged with another crime that was dismissed. That kept me off the stand, no jury member heard anything from me. There were two nurses who did testify, but because of objections, they never were able to say what was needed. In the second trial, my lawyer chose to use a different line of defense to show no intent. He did not want to bore the jury by touching on every point as I have done here. The jury was VERY bored. The jury foreman and her girlfriend next to her were giggling and playing with their hair. Others were just plain inattentive. What goes on in court is not a story, it is bits and pieces. I felt some very important things did not get addressed, and because we did not bring in those witnesses, it enabled my former supervisor to lie and say an admission took about 2 hours! The witness (from the first trial) had maintained it took about 7 hours as I have always said. There is a lot to do for an admission, and while some people type faster and maybe some do less teaching than I do, the end result is about 7 hours, perhaps 6 1/2. While the prosecution never claimed I took too long to do my work or that I exagerated my time, the huge difference between what I said and what the supervisor said was something that I am sure swayed the jury. I needed that witness. I really tried to dumb down in my last response, but there are none so blind as those who will not see. You say I give hearsay and opinions? I stated the definitions of things and what the new rules were. I told what I did (work) and explained how I did it. I would have to be very stupid to repeatedly do hours and hours worth of work immediately after work hours if there was a rule that said you would not get paid for doing that. Likewise I would have to be very stupid for not staying in the patient home to do my documenting if that is what I had to do to be paid for my time! You and Lorie expect more from me than you would from anyone else! I am sure if YOU worked an extra 8 hours three evenings a week doing voluntary call outs, you would expect to be paid for your work. Everyone expects to be paid for their work. I tried to ask questions so you could see how dumb it is to think I could possibly be aware of those two rules if I never followed them. I could have done a 7 hour visit in an evening, and took off the whole next day using flex time! That didn't happen because I did not earn flex time. You don't earn flex time just for doing a voluntary call out, you get paid voluntary call out pay. My supervisor was aware of my circumstances, she knew I had to pay a sitter for my son if I worked in the evening. She offered me voluntary call outs so I could earn extra pay. She knew I was going to these visits immediately after work hours. She requested I leave immediately after work hours on most occasions. If I were not getting any pay for the visit, why would she come to me instead of the nurse ON CALL who is getting paid? She was trying to help me out. If you can't see that, you should not be walking the streets.

More and more excuses Michele however if I am an idiot, please explain to me how to interpret this quote from Judge Noonan....

Noonan didn't buy any of it.
"I do have a feeling that you see everything through your own little prism of view and that's how you look at it," Noonan said. "You took a nursing job that didn't pan out because other nurses are paid more elsewhere. The detective didn't look at this or look at that ... at some point, you should sit back and look at this the way 24 separate jurors have now looked at it and concluded that you didn't just make mistakes. You stole money."

As for being "paid" for my time I volunteer at Crossroads House and do basically the same things you do on your visits including the documentation. I do not expect to get paid at all. When I go back to volunteering this fall I still wont expect to get paid either. All I see in your comments is poor poor me all the time. Very sad most people have the common sense to do the job their supposed to and when the work environment breaks down they leave to go to other jobs. Not take advantage of the chaos to line their pockets and brag about their sacrifices and such for the pats on the back.

So just continue to comment all you want, all you do is prove the point to everyone here that the Judge and juries got it correct.

so how did you PROVE you were not on a cell phone? I think the wonderful wizard of oz gave her a "wolf" crying kit instead of a brain.

Yeah, Kyle, the crazy lady don't think you should be walking the streets. Michele you are a mean-spirited crook. Stealing from the elderly. UGH. There are words for you but I am too much of a lady to use them.

Kyle: hooray for you for performing volunteer work. I, too have always performed volunteer work. Often times my children also worked with me and we made it a family thing. The nice thing about it, is you get to CHOOSE who you volunteer for. I accepted a JOB at Homecare and Hospice. I rightfully expected to get paid for my work there. The WRITTEN POLICY of HC&H says there are 2 types of call outs, regular call outs and voluntary call outs. The nurse on call is paid a stipend for being on call all week. In addition, she earns an hourly wage for doing "regular call outs." A nurse who is NOT GETTING PAID because she is NOT ON CALL can volunteer to do call outs for the other nurse. As a "reward" she is paid "VOLUNTARY CALL OUT PAY" which is (as I previously said) $2 to $3 MORE than regular call out pay. This is their rules IN WRITING. How you suppose I was a volunteer and why you would compare my work to volunteerism really astounds me. To my knowledge HC&H has NEVER had volunteer nurses, just volunteers who occasionally provide companionship to hospice clients. What you do at Crossroads is great, but the comparison to my employment is an apples to oranges comparison. Either you are independently wealthy, or you also have employment. Maybe you can compare that employment to my employment. I will not respond to Lorie because she appears to be everything she calls me and I choose not to waste my time. I thought you sounded a little naïve, but intelligent, so I thought I would respond to you in the openness that I have shared. The idea that a nurse would work at hospice, work all those additional hours and then steal is ridiculous. HC&H salary is nowhere near competitive to other agencies so believe me, nobody is there for the money, it HAS TO be something more. During my nursing career, my salary has ranged from $45,000 to $60,000 with the exception of HC&H which paid $30,000 (The $45,000 was as a new graduate nurse). With ALL the extra work I did at hospice, almost EVERY weekend and MOST nights, my hospice salary was about $42,000. I did all the extra work so I could "give back" but still be able to afford to support my family. I never "bragged" as you say, but I did feel VERY GOOD about the work I did and the fact that I was the most requested nurse according to my supervisor. This meant I was appreciated, and it meant a lot to me. If I really was all about the money, I would have just taken a $60,000 job and worked 40 hours a week. The only reason I said ANYTHING about money, was to SHOW how ridiculous the prosecution's theory was that I only worked more to steal...the actual figures disprove that. Insofar as the Judge's comments, as I said before, it would be most improper for him not to verbally agree with the jury. You might ask, why did he not do as the probation dept. and the D.A. requested and throw me in jail/prison? It is highly unusual for a Judge to go against their recommendations. Maybe you might read between the lines. I am now officially...DONE HERE! God Bless you all.

Speaking on volunteering (and, yes, I realize it has nothing to do with this thread), CHECK THIS OUT:
I was just listening to WBZ radio (Boston), and heard what I thought was a 'mis-speak' - so I had to check it out.

New Hampshire's 24 state senators AND 400 legislators are each paid a salary of $200 for their two-year terms. That's right. $100 per year. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_Senate and http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_House_of_Representatives

Which brings their total, COMBINED salaries to $42, 400 per year.
New York?

Well, what can I say? Each (EACH) state senator gets paid $79, 500 -PER YEAR
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Senate
And, that's not even counting the 'Reps'.
Ain't NY just the greatest state to pay taxes in? :(

Michele, take your right index finger and point it at your right temple. Now spin your finger in a circle.

Enjoy!