Former Lower Rescue Driver Pleads Guilty in Theft

VILLAS — Former Lower Township Rescue Squad driver Christina Von Collen pled guilty in Superior Court Friday ,Dec. 12 to stealing $750 from the purse of a patient she was transporting home from Cape Regional Medical Center last July 4.
Under a plea agreement, she will have 90 days to repay all the funds. Von Collen made a payment of $100 one week ago.
She will be required to repay an additional $200 by Dec. 19.
Judge Raymond A. Batten will sentence Von Collen Feb. 27, 2009.
The victim, Clara Coan, 85, of Villas returned home from the hospital, after riding in a wheelchair in a Lower Township Rescue Squad ambulance, and discovered $750 cash and a $560 Veteran’s Administration check was missing from her purse.
Coan went to Cape Regional Medical Center July 3 with symptoms of a heart attack.
She said before going to the hospital, she put aside $750 in cash and a $560 VA check in an envelope in her purse to buy two new storm doors for her home. She said she took the money with her to the hospital because she was afraid someone would break into her home while she was in the hospital.
She was kept overnight at Cape Regional Medical Center. Her money was kept in a safe at the hospital and returned in full when she left, said Coan.
Coan said she and a security guard counted the money before she left the hospital.
“It was all there,” she told the Herald.
Coan, a widow, had no one to drive her home and the hospital called Lower Township Rescue to transport her.
Coan said she had told Von Collen she had a lot of money in her purse.
On Aug. 5, 2008, Lower Township Rescue Squad announced that it had terminated the employment of Von Collen.