Pierce County nursing assistant accused of stealing from dead client’s bank account

A nursing assistant from Pierce County had her license suspended after being accused of stealing from her dead client’s bank account.

According to court records first reported by the Tacoma News Tribune, Jennifer Wenski, 53, made about $20,000 in purchases and ATM withdrawals using her deceased client’s debit card and twice used the victim’s Electronic Benefits Transfer card.

According to charging documents, the victim’s bank account dwindled from more than $26,000 at the time of her death to approximately $5,000 before the account was frozen. Wenski claimed she used the money for her client’s cremation and attributed large withdrawals to illicit drugs allegedly used by her client and the client’s recently deceased husband.

She has now pleaded guilty to an identity theft charge and must pay $4,000 to the victim’s estate. As part of a plea deal, she was ordered to pay restitution, undergo a chemical dependency evaluation and was sentenced to a year of community custody, avoiding jail time.

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Wenski initially faced 18 counts of second-degree identity theft and possession of stolen property in January 2023.

In her plea, Wenski admitted to knowingly using another person’s identification or financial information to obtain less than $1,500 over a week-long period. A spokesperson for the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said the state agency that licenses nurses would decide whether the conviction affects Wenski’s ability to reapply for her certified nursing assistant license.

Wenski’s 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.

In 2021, the state’s Adult Protective Services referred the case to the Puyallup Police Department due to fraudulent activity on the victim’s bank account. The charging document noted numerous online purchases and ATM withdrawals on the day of the victim’s death and continued transactions afterward.

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Puyallup police reviewed surveillance videos and transaction receipts from businesses to track in-store purchases, concluding that Wenski had shopped at various stores using her client’s debit card.

Linda Davis, the victim’s sister, said in an interview that Wenski isolated her sister from the family and convinced her that she cared about her. Davis, 73, a former nurse and caregiver, 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, and state health records noted she could not reapply for reinstatement for three years. Under Washington regulations, identity theft is among the crimes disqualifying individuals from having unsupervised access to adults or minors receiving certain services, including home-care programs.

Bill Kaczaraba is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here. Follow Bill on X, formerly known as Twitter, here and email him here.