Reporter ISSAQUAH | SAMMAMISH
Friday, June 1, 2012
www.issaquahreporter.com
ATM fraud
Life Enrichment Opportunities opened this caregiver home in the Issaquah Highlands last month for people with disabilities. From the left, Rose Finnegan, a founder, and Nancy Whitaker, board president. Below, the inside of the LEO house.
Sammamish skimmer faces four-year sentence BY KEVIN ENDEJAN KENDEJAN@ISSAQUAHREPORTER.COM
CELESTE GRACEY, Issaquah & Sammamish Reporter
A Home of Their Own
Local nonprofit helps adults with developmental disabilities find independence, family BY CELESTE GRACEY
“Our main goal was to create a community where people with disabilities could live life to the fullest.”
CGRACEY@ISSAQUAHREPORTER.COM
F
or adults with development disabilities, living independent of their parents and having a family of their own often seems an impossibility. An Issaquah nonprofit, Life Enrichment Options, is challenging that reality with the opening of its third caregiver home, which not only allows the disabled to live more independent lives but also to develop deep bonds of their own. “It means a home,” said LEO Board President Nancy Whitaker. “It means a family.” Nestled in the Issaquah Highlands, the house expects to welcome five people this summer. Unlike state institutions, the house blends into the neighborhood along 25th Avenue. In its entryway, a key ring holder in the doorway aptly reads “home.” A donation of about $13,000 from the
– Rose Finnegan, founder
Employees Community Fund of Boeing Puget Sound helped furnish and decorate the home in warm tones. The main floor has five bed-
rooms, each large enough that residents can have a bed set and sofa. A few steps past a large sectional sofa, an oversized kitchen table beckons community. From the kitchen, which has two refrigerators and two pantries, stairs lead up to a caregiver’s apartment. The caregiver, licensed by the state, leases the home from LEO. She then collects money from Medicaid or from the residents’ paychecks, if they’ve found a job. While some people with disabilities are able to eventually live on their own, she provides SEE LEO, 6
Dmitry Sandler, a Sammamish resident who installed “skimming” devices on bank ATMs and raided 255 bank accounts for more than $176,000, was sentenced last Friday in U.S. District Court to four years in prison and $177,278 in restitution. The 26-year-old was arrested in November 2011 while attempting to retrieve skimming equipment from a Chase Bank ATM in Everett. Sandler was linked to a spree of skimming activity in the Seattle and Denver areas between April and November 2011. He pleaded guilty in February 2012 to bank fraud, access device fraud and aggravated identity theft. At sentencing U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez noted that Sandler is a Russian immigrant who will be deported following his prison term. Sandler “requested asylum saying he likes Americans, then he engaged in stealing money from these very people,” Martinez said. According to records filed in the case, Sandler installed skimming equipment on various ATMs, along with a SEE SKIMMER, 6
GET OUR FREE MOBILE APP Receive local news on your mobile device today!