State prosecutors said Thursday that they knew nothing of the scheduled guilty plea hearing in Schuylkill County Court for a Cressona woman charged with stealing more than $21,000 from an elderly nursing home resident.
Jennifer L. Ferrier, 39, had been scheduled to plead guilty to charges of theft, receiving stolen property and access device fraud.
However, Judge Charles M. Miller did not accept the plea, postponing it to a date to be set in the future.
"We were not notified of this hearing. That's why we weren't there. The prosecutors from the office of attorney general always show up, prepared and ready to do business." Joe Peters, spokesman for state Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane, said Thursday.
Peters said that while Schuylkill County did not notify his office, he didn't know whose responsibility it is in the county to do so.
"Our relationship with the district attorney's office is excellent and if there was an error, these things happen every day," Peters said.
Schuylkill County District Attorney Karen Byrnes-Noon said that since her office was not handling the case, it had no duty to notify the attorney general's office of anything related to it.
"Once we are out of the case ... we have no control over scheduling or any other hearing. I want to make that very clear," she said. "Nor is it our responsibility to contact the attorney's general's office."
State police at Schuylkill Haven have charged Ferrier, a home health care aide, with obtaining the debit card of Lois Fells, 81, a resident of Luther Ridge Nursing Home, Pottsville, and using it at various county stores to get cash and buy gasoline, gifts and groceries from October 2012 through Jan. 6.
Ferrier had been hired to transport Fells to and from appointments and to help with shopping and other errands, police said.
Fells' bank notified her Jan. 6 that she had insufficient funds in her account to cover the transactions, police said. Fells' card was used at Sheetz stores in Pottsville and Schuylkill Haven, the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Saint Clair, Giant grocery stores and Exxon gasoline stations, as well as numerous ATMs along Route 61, according to police.
The state attorney general's office is handling the matter because the defendant's father is Magisterial District Judge James R. Ferrier, and Byrnes-Noon believed it would be a conflict of interest to have any members of her office, some of whom appear in front of the judge on a regular basis, work on the case.
First Deputy Clerk of Courts Paul Steffanic said his office does not send notices of guilty pleas to prosecutors or defendants, although it sends other notices to the attorney general's office.
Deputy Court Administrator Bruce Heffner said his office provides a list of upcoming guilty pleas to the district attorney's office but does not notify the attorney general's office of any pleas in cases it handles.
"We have never had a problem before," Heffner said Thursday.