Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'Grinch' Housekeeper Robbed Boss After Demanding Christmas Bonus: Sheriff

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Heather Nelson is accused of robbing an 83-year-old woman she worked for in Brevard County, Florida after demanding a $500 Christmas bonus. Sheriff Wayne Ivey said the elderly woman couldn't afford the bonus so Nelson snatched the woman's checkbook and left her with a sprained wrist. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with the sheriff about the brazen allegations in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/crimefix to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guests:Sheriff Wayne Ivey https://www.facebook.com/BrevardCountySheriffRichie Wallace https://www.linkedin.com/in/rich-wallace-clee-44638a29/CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A woman in cuffs after the sheriff says she robbed her 83-year-old boss, literally twisting her arm to get away with a blank check. I have the shocking details out of Florida and why the sheriff calls the alleged thief a Grinch. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. When it comes to Christmas time, you really want to

think about happy things and people doing really good things. But last Christmas Eve, the sheriff in Brevard County, Florida said that didn't happen with a woman named Heather Nelson and an 83-year-old woman who employed her as a house cleaner. In fact, the sheriff has labeled Heather Nelson the Grinch. It was the night before Christmas when the sheriff says Heather Nelson was at the woman's home and a terrible incident unfolded. The victim stated that Ms. Nelson demanded $500 for a Christmas bonus, and when she told Ms. Nelson she didn't have it, Ms. Nelson became irate. The victim further stated Ms. Nelson used force to grab her wrist, twist her arm,

and physically took her checkbook away from her while arguing with her. Wow, what's described in the complaint sounds so incredibly violent. The victim said this is someone she trusted to clean her home, and she didn't have the money for a Christmas bonus. So Nelson is accused of literally snatching that checkbook right out of the woman's hand.

The complaint continues. After taking the checkbook, Ms. Nelson ripped out a check from the middle of the checkbook, then walked out of the house and left the scene. The victim then noticed her purse had been opened, her debit and credit cards were laying on the couch, and she was missing what she believed was $30 to $40 in cash. As Ms. Nelson was walking out, she also grabbed two Christmas cards, which contained checks written to other people.

Now, this seems almost unbelievable since Heather Nelson knew the victim, and according to the affidavit, Nelson used the victim's checks and credit card to pay some bills. The affidavit, Nelson used the victim's checks and credit card to pay some bills. The affidavit lays out some of the transactions. It states, on December 24, 2024, there was a transaction for $1,752.52 to YSI Southgate Apartments. On December 24, another transaction for $50 to afterpay. Then on Christmas Day, December 25th,

there was a transaction for $150 to afterpay. That same day, Christmas, there was another transaction for $75 to afterpay, and then two more payments to afterpay on Christmas, one for $50 and another for $37.50. The detective who wrote the complaint said the payment to the apartment was for Heather Nelson's rent, which included a late fee. Afterpay is one of those programs where you can buy something now and pay for it later. Heather Nelson faces a long list of charges, including robbery by sudden snatching, aggravated battery on a person older than 65, forgery, grand theft, and fraudulent use of a credit card. Nelson was taken into custody by detectives on January 6th.

Photos showed detectives talking with her. Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey, he's known for his colorful Facebook posts, and that's how he announced Heather Nelson's arrest. He said that she was the Grinch who tried to steal Christmas. Sheriff Ivey wrote, Of course, knowing that the Grinch who tried to steal Christmas from an 83-year-old was about to be arrested by our team, I decided to go out with them on the arrest as I wanted to see exactly what the Grinch looked like in person.

And even better, when Nelson saw me on scene as she was being arrested, she asked Agent Cheryl why he had to bring me as I was going to blast her all over Facebook and make her look bad. The post continued, to be honest, Heather, you made yourself look bad. And that is why you had a waiting reservation at Ivy's Iron Bar Lodge on a $30,000 bond. And of course, since you were so worried about getting your bonus, we had some extra gifts for you, like a keepsake booking photo, a slightly used pair of shower slides, and unlimited access to our world-famous one-star dining facility where you can enjoy absolutely nothing you eat. I want to tell you about Upside. It's a free app that gets you cash

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So I want to bring in Sheriff Wayne Ivey of the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. Sheriff Ivey, first of all, how is the victim in this case doing? It sounds really terrible the way her wrist was kind of wrenched, and I guess she had a pretty bad sprain. Yeah, you know, when we're dealing with where our seniors have been targeted, you not only have the physical injury, as you said, from her wrist being sprained so badly, but also the emotional injury that goes with it. Not not being able to trust anyone, fearing losing their independence and everything. But overall, she's doing good. Our team, our advocates are working with her and and doing everything we can to help get her back to where she was before. You know, what really struck me about this was the fact that the complaint said that Heather Nelson had worked for her for like a year.

So and then she's just asking for this five hundred dollar Christmas bonus. And the woman says, I don't have the money to give it to you. And she's accused of reacting this way, snatching the checkbook and everything and and then going and writing a check and using the woman's credit cards. I mean, is there is there any did this woman ever have any inkling that anything was amiss or that this woman was ever taking anything from her before or anything like that? Yeah. So, you know, as we as our team and by the way, our agents did such a great job on this. But as our team dug deeper in this and peeled back the layers of the onion, what we found is that she had been taking advantage of her in so many different ways. I mean, there was indications that she had actually, if she went out to the mailbox to pick up the mail, she was charging her $100 to go out and get her mail. So, you know, just disgusting approach and taking advantage and abusing one of our seniors. And we're really, quite frankly, one of our most precious of citizens are our seniors that are such a big part of our community.

You're telling me that Heather Nelson was saying to this woman, yeah, I'll go out and get your mail if you give me a hundred bucks. Oh, it was, it was all sorts of different things of that nature, charging her outrageous stuff. And then when you, when you fast forward to what happened on the day before Christmas, where she not only wrenched the checkbook out of her hand, but she even took mail that was set to go out that she knew had cash and stuff like that. And at Christmas gifts, if you will, took that as well. Wow. Wow.

So you guys, your agents, your detectives tracked down Heather Nelson. I mean, obviously the victim was able to identify her and tell you who she was. Tell me how they went about tracking her down, because you obviously had the photographs of the arrest. Yeah, so they started looking for her, you know, once they identified her and put all the evidence together. I mean, even down to where she had paid her rent on the victim's credit cards. They started trying to locate her, and they found her at a restaurant in Coco and I was actually trying to get there before she came out of the restaurant

because I wanted to be part of the arrest on something that does something that's egregious towards one of our citizens but she came out and we took her down before she could get in the car and as they had her standing there I pulled up. And when she saw me pull up on the scene, I think it made her realize what was about to happen,

that she was about to, for lack of better terms, get blasted for the egregious act she had done. Yeah, and you had kind of written about that on your Facebook page. I mean, this is something you do when you find something egregious going on in the community or, you know, that somebody's done something you don't like. You put it on your Facebook page and you did that with this and you kind of called her the Grinch who tried to steal Christmas. So she definitely got blasted on your Facebook page? Yeah, you know, I'm old school and I don't only look to try and rehabilitate the person or bring justice for the victim, but I'm also in looking at

trying to keep somebody else from doing the same criminal acts. And so when we arrest somebody, whether they've abused an animal, whether they've stolen from someone, abused someone, done drugs, whatever. We put them up and we let people know this is the criminal element that we're out here taking off the street and that you need to be aware of. And, you know, some people get upset

by it. They get offended by the fact that we blast them out on Facebook. But as I tell a lot of people, I'm not here to protect feelings. I'm here to protect our citizens. Did Heather Nelson say anything when she was taken into custody? She, you know, talked to the agents a little bit. I'm not I'm not privy to the exact substance of her interview. I do know that she made the comment that she knew she was going to get blasted all over social media for it. I know that she tried to justify her actions a little bit, but I don't have all the specific details of the interview. Are there is there a possibility that there could be more charges filed based on the things you talked about earlier? I mean, I don't know if charging somebody one hundred dollars to go get the mail. I mean, it sounds like robbery,

but I don't know if like it technically breaks any laws. Yeah. So, no, I mean, unfortunately, it's just taking advantage of someone that that's sadly in that position. But our team's continuing to look. Obviously, we'll continue to check bank statements and things of that nature to see if any other charges are forthcoming. I can tell you that when when you see this, and unfortunately it happens all too often to our seniors, you want to try and bring justice to them by getting the person in jail. The big problem is at times it's difficult to get their money back. And some of them lose not just $1,400 or $10,000. Some of them lose hundreds of thousands of dollars

after being taken advantage of. Well, thank goodness the victim in this case wasn't more seriously hurt. And it just sounded a little scary because she said that Heather Nelson, she believed she was outside her place watching her afterwards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, our team certainly has looked at all of that and and will continue to work from a victim's advocate standpoint. We have some great advocates in our agency. Again, I can't say enough about the work the agents did in this case.

They they took it from the very beginning and made sure that they got her arrested as quickly as possible. Thank you, Sheriff Wayne Ivey. I appreciate it. Thank you, ma'am. Thanks for having us. Heather Nelson was released from jail after appearing in court. I also spoke with Chief Richie Wallace in Amberley Village, Ohio, and he also called this a form of elder abuse. I asked him whether there's anything that can be done to prevent something like this from happening. The prevention has to come with the communication and the family. The family, you know, we never really can let our guard down. You know, we, you know, we have to rely on healthcare workers and, you know, cleaners and

everyone else to come into these homes because we're all working jobs and we can't really always be there for the loved ones. But at the same time, we can't turn a blind eye to what could happen. A lot of times we tell people not to leave checkbooks in the house with them, secure their cash, credit cards, and things like that. We recently started a program in Ohio at our police department. It's a senior program, and our goal is to identify every senior within the community and surrounding, and they can actually reach out to one officer designated to this type of thing. If they're having a worker come to the house, they can have this officer stop by and spend time with them. If there's different resources they need,

they can be taken advantage of on a simple job to come out and pave a driveway or something. And they're putting all this money up front and not realizing and thinking it's normal, but it's not. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.