Tri-Cities caregiver accused of stealing $17,000 from 90-year-old Pasco woman

A Kennewick nursing assistant is accused of stealing $17,000 from a 90-year-old woman she was taking care of.

Investigators believe McKayla L. Sammons, 29, stole at least nine checks sometime during a period of about six weeks when she worked as a care giver. Then she deposited them in her account, court documents said.

Sammons pleaded innocent in Franklin County Superior Court on Tuesday to the charges of first-degree theft and forgery.

She denied stealing the checks when she spoke to investigators. She said the checks showed up in her mailbox and she deposited them into her account, court documents said.

“She was confronted with the absurdity of her explanation on how she obtained the checks and she continued to say that the checks came in her mailbox,” Pasco Detective Jed Abastillas said in an affidavit describing the crime.

Sammons is a certified nursing assistant, the state Department of Health said. Her first license was issued in April 2023.

Police began looking into the forged checks on Feb. 26 when a 90-year-old’s caregiver called because her client had gotten a call from Yakima Federal Savings. The bank had been calling the 90-year-old woman about a suspicious check, court documents said.

When the women went to Yakima Federal Savings, they discovered nine fraudulent checks between $500 and $3,200, court documents said. All of them were made out to Sammons and signed by the 90-year-old.

But the woman said she never approved the $17,000 in payments that went through or a $2,800 check that didn’t clear.

Sammons had worked as a night shift caregiver for the woman and her husband between Nov. 19 and Dec. 26. During that period she received four paychecks from the woman for between $600 and $1,800.

Investigators were told Sammons had free run of the house at night and could have taken the checks. Police couldn’t find the carbon copies for any of the checks.

The alleged fraudulent checks were deposited between Dec. 26. and Feb. 20.

The handwriting on the checks appears to match Sammons’ time sheets, court documents said.