Western Springs Suspect Needed Gambling Cash: Cops

WESTERN SPRINGS, IL – A caregiver for a 71-year-old Western Springs man earlier this month denied stealing from him, but then admitted she did, Western Springs police said.

Cressida Barthelemy, 58, of Chicago, was charged with a felony count of financial exploitation of an elderly person.

Patch obtained the police report through a public records request.

On Sept. 4, Western Springs officers were waiting outside Barthelemy’s house on Chicago’s South Side when she rolled up in a tan 2009 BMW, according to the report.

She was arrested and taken to the Western Springs police station.

At first, she told officers the man asked her to be his girlfriend and wrote checks to her.

Then she acknowledged she wrote three or four checks to herself without the man’s permission, police said. She said she used the money to cover gambling expenses, saying she was paid so little to take care of the man, the report said.

Police records indicated Barthelemy wrote nine checks from the man’s account totaling $4,450 between June 25 and July 12. In signing one check, Barthelemy misspelled the man’s name, police said.

Barthelemy’s employer, Joliet-based R.S. Independent Home Health Care, assigned her to care for the man from June 21 to July 11, police said.

On July 25, Chase Bank had alerted the man of suspicious activity on his checking account, police said. The man never wrote any checks to Barthelemy, the report said.