Lindsey Allison Kerns, 39, of Mars Hill, NC, was sentenced to 45 months in prison for stealing more than $1 million from two elderly clients in her care. In addition to the prison term imposed, she was also ordered to serve three years under court supervision and to pay $1,088,554.99 as restitution. According to information contained in court documents and court proceedings, from December 2018 to April 2020, Kerns owned and operated Home Care Coordinators, LLC, a business that provided home healthcare in Buncombe and Madison Counties. Beginning in December 2018, Kerns arranged to provide home healthcare services to two elderly clients, identified in court documents as S.A. and P.R., who were 86 and 90 years old, respectively.
According to court documents, Kerns provided home healthcare services to S.A. and P.R. all of 2019 and into 2020. During that time, Kerns did not provide S.A. or P.R. with detailed invoices of her home healthcare services. Instead, Kerns orally informed S.A. on a weekly basis how much money Kerns claimed she was owed for services rendered, and S.A. wrote checks in those amounts from P.R.’s bank accounts. Over the course of the scheme, Kerns defrauded the elderly victims in a number of ways, including by overbilling them for services that were inflated or never provided; double-billing them for other services such as cleaning and moving that were either not provided or were provided by caregivers during hours already billed; and by billing at a higher rate than what Kerns and the victims had agreed upon. Kerns overcharged S.A. and P.R. $1,088,554.99 for services that were never provided, and used the money she swindled from the victims to purchase vehicles and ATVs, to buy luxury retail items, and to pay for hotel stays and vacation rentals.
