Three held over for trial in kidnapping of 94-year-old woman

A judge ordered three defendants to face trial on charges of kidnapping and elder abuse stemming from their removal of a 94-year-old woman with dementia and heart disease from a hospital to get money from her bank account.

Stanislaus Superior Court Judge Dawna Reeves said she agreed with the defense argument that the defendants did not cultivate a several-year friendship with the victim in order to take advantage of her in the last days of her life. “Evidence indicates a long-standing relationship that rose to the level of care,” she said of the friendship Manuel Flores, 38, Rosemary Bazan Flores, 38, and their daughter, Salyce Bazan, 19, showed for Margaret Mattson.

But the judge said she did not understand the defendants’ “urgency” on Feb. 8, when they took her from Doctors Medical Center against the directions of hospital staff.

The defendants had multiple conversations with medical and social services staff and were told a number of times why Mattson should not go home. Still, they removed her from oxygen and her heart monitor and put her in a wheelchair at a time she was being treated for a fall. It’s not reasonable to think that the defendants, not being relatives, believed they had legal authority to remove Mattson from the hospital, Reeves said.

The defendants’ urgency suggests an illegal purpose, to get their hands on Mattson’s money. “If there were no illegal purpose,” the judge said, “I would expect she would have been taken to a place where she can get rest and care.”

Officers’ discovery of a check made out to Mattson suggests that after leaving the hospital, the defendants drove to her home to get her purse, then to her bank, Reeves said. There had been prior discussion of giving the defendants $1,000 to get her out of the hospital, “and coincidentally, she had $1,000 in her purse.”

Ronald Sarhad, attorney for Salyce Bazan, said everything the family did was consistent with Mattson’s wishes. He said he didn’t want to turn his closing comments at the preliminary hearing into an indictment of Doctors Medical Center, but hospital staff had the institutional authority to keep Mattson on a 5150 involuntary hold, but did not. It was revealed in court Monday afternoon that Mattson died Feb. 18.

Ernie Spokes, attorney for Rosemary Flores, said the defendants were attempting to the best of their ability to provide care for Mattson. Witnesses testified that the defendants were trying to find a vendor to provide an oxygen tank and finally the afternoon of Feb. 8 secured an oxygen machine from Rosemary Flores’ father.

But prosecutor Michael Karimi argued that Mattson was without an oxygen tank for about three hours, when, according to a nurse, she needed it within three minutes before her oxygen levels fell. The defendants took time to drive around in attempts to get oxygen when they could have returned Mattson to a place she easily could have received it – the hospital, Karimi said.

Each of the defendants took on the role of caregiver when they removed her from the hospital, he said, yet their actions placed her in great bodily danger. Their criminal intent was evident through the manner in which they behaved, the prosecutor said: They asked no questions of hospital staff about her care, what she would need at home. The note she handed to a detective – “pain pills” written a few times – when police confronted the defendants at her home showed there was no attention to her care. The focus was on getting her purse and getting to the bank, Karimi said.

Reeves scheduled an arraignment for March 14 at 8:30 a.m.

This story was originally published February 29, 2016 at 7:08 PM with the headline "Three held over for trial in kidnapping of 94-year-old woman."