A nursing assistant in Pierce County whose license was suspended after she was accused of stealing from her deceased client’s bank account has pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge and must pay the victim’s estate $4,000, court records show.
Jennifer Wenski, 53, was originally charged in January 2023 with 18 counts of second-degree identity theft and possession of stolen property. The state Department of Health previously said Wenski made approximately $20,000 worth of purchases and ATM withdrawals with her deceased client’s debit card and also twice used the victim’s EBT card.
On Aug. 16, Wenski pleaded guilty in Pierce County Superior Court to just one count of second-degree identity theft. As part of a plea deal, she was ordered to pay restitution, undergo a chemical dependency evaluation and sentenced to a year of community custody, avoiding jail time, court records show. For a first-time offender like Wenski, the charge had carried a standard sentencing range of up to 90 days of confinement.
In her plea, Wenski admitted to “knowingly us(ing) a means of identification or financial information of another person ... with the intent to obtain money in the amount less than $1,500” over a roughly week-long period, according to a court document.
Adam Faber, spokesperson for the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, said that the state agency that licenses nurses would ultimately decide whether the conviction affected Wenski’s ability to reapply for her certified nursing assistant license.
“Beyond that, there’s not much to add,” Faber said in an email. “It’s a first time offender situation.”
A message left for Wenski’s legal counsel was not returned. Her lawyer, John Michael Sheeran, previously told The News Tribune that Wenski had no intent to defraud the victim or the victim’s estate.
Wenski, who worked for an in-home care service, was a caregiver for the victim for nearly two years until the victim’s death in January 2021, court and state health records show. The victim’s bank account dwindled from more than $26,000 at the time of her death to roughly $5,000 within a few weeks before the account was frozen, according to the criminal case’s charging document.
In 2021, the state’s Adult Protective Services made a referral to the Puyallup Police Department in regard to fraudulent activity on the victim’s bank account, charging papers show.
“On the day of her death there were numerous online purchases through Amazon as well as other online purchases and ATM withdrawals,” the charging document said. “Even after (the client’s) death — the purchases and ATM withdrawals continued.”
To track in-store purchases, Puyallup police reviewed surveillance videos from businesses and copies of transaction receipts within the first month following the victim’s death. Authorities concluded that Wenski had shopped at Costco, Winco, Rite Aid, Walgreens and Walmart. In each trip, prosecutors alleged, Wenski used her client’s debit card to buy $5 to $196 worth of merchandise.
Wenski “was unsure if she had been grocery shopping after the death with (her client’s) debit card but ... after being shown some of the surveillance evidence she admitted that was her,” the charging document said. “She agreed that she had no right to take the money from (her client’s) account. She could not estimate how much she had taken.”
Wenski had also claimed that she had used money to pay for her client’s cremation, attributed large withdrawals to illicit drugs that she alleged were used by her client and her client’s recently deceased husband, and told police that she had settled related drug debts. She said she believed she gave the victim’s debit card to her client’s stepson within a week after her client died.
The victim’s family disputed Wenski’s claims.
The victim’s sister, Linda Davis, said in an interview Friday that Wenski had isolated her sister from the family and convinced her sister that she cared about her.
“It tears my heart out whenever I think about it,” Davis said. “I think she had long-time plans to do this to my sister.”
Davis, 73, formerly a nurse and caregiver, said she recognized red flags and reported Wenski to the state’s Adult Protective Services before her sister passed.
“She should never be able to be a caregiver again ever,” Davis said.
In June 2023, Wenski’s certified nursing assistant license was suspended. State health records noted that she could not reapply for reinstatement for three years.
The state Department of Health didn’t return a message seeking to learn more about how Wenski’s conviction might affect license reinstatement. Under Washington regulations, identity theft is on a list of crimes disqualifying convicted individuals from having unsupervised access to adults or minors receiving certain services, including home-care programs.
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