MOORHEAD, Minn. – A Moorhead grandmother faces two felony charges after allegedly stealing room and board money from her 23-year-old developmentally delayed granddaughter.
Patricia June Fineday, 68, was charged Thursday in Clay County District Court with two counts of felony failure to provide care and deprivation of financial resources of a vulnerable adult.
Each charge carries with it a potential maximum five-year prison term if convicted.
According to a probable cause statement filed with the charges, a Moorhead Police Department detective received a call from Kanabec County (Minn.) Social Services about a 23-year-old vulnerable woman whose grandmother they called when the 23-year-old’s room and board at a licensed facility was four months overdue.
The woman was mildly developmentally disabled, the Social Services representative told Detective Seth Saarinen.
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She had fetal alcohol syndrome and attention deficit disorder, and lived in a facility operated by Residential Services Inc. in Mora.
The representative told Saarinen that Fineday, who is her granddaughter’s legal guardian, admitted using the money for other things, including paying her own bills.
Fineday assured the Social Services representative that now that she had moved, she should be able to get caught up.
Saarinen contacted Fineday, who allegedly told him in an interview that she was the young woman’s legal guardian and responsible for paying all of her bills out of the young woman’s recycling plant paycheck and Social Security payments.
Fineday also allegedly told the detective she let her granddaughter’s rent go unpaid so she could use the money for her own bills and gas for her car.
Banking records allegedly show the balance unpaid on the vulnerable woman’s rent was $3,080.
Fineday’s first court appearance is set for April 17.
