Toms River Home Aide Sentenced to Pay $144K Restitution

A Toms River woman will serve 94 days in jail and must repay $144,950 she admitted stealing from a home health aide patient.

Yvette Bullard-Tebetts, 44, of Toms River, was sentenced Sept. 7 by Superior Court Judge Wendell Daniels in Ocean County.

She will serve 94 days in county jail as a condition of two years of probation. Bullard-Tebetts was also ordered to pay $144,950 in restitution as well as a $1,936 to the Division of Criminal Justice for repayment of costs incurred due to costs of her extradition in June, announced Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa.

Chiesa said in a news release today that Bullard-Tebetts stole from a patient by forging and cashing blank checks.

Bullard-Tebetts had pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree theft by deception and three counts of third-degree uttering a forged instrument.  The charges were contained in a state grand jury indictment that was unsealed on Nov. 16, 2011. Her plea came in July.

Bullard-Tebetts admitted stealing three blank checks from a home health aide patient who employed her, according to a release from the attorney general's office. Bullard-Tebetts forged and cashed the checks for $144,950, the release said.

The home health aide then used the money in Atlantic City casinos, on furniture, travel, clothing, jewelry, a car and her apartment lease, the release said.

According to Chiesa, Bullard-Tebetts was returned on June 12 from Florida to New Jersey by way of a Governor’s Warrant executed by the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor, Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.

Acting Insurance Fraud Prosecutor Ronald Chillemi noted that Deputy Attorney General Gina M. Galante and Detectives Anthony Iannice and Kylie Mattis were assigned to the case.