Another Grady patient stolen from, police say

Former Grady Memorial Hospital worker Tacuma Jawara is in trouble again.

Atlanta police charged Jawara Tuesday with a third count of theft, but this time he’s accused of stealing money orders — not wedding rings — from a Grady patient who died at the hospital.

A retired school janitor from DeKalb County, Jane Pounds, was brought to the hospital Nov. 6 with heart problems and died three weeks later.

Detective P.J. Roberson obtained the money order receipts from Pounds’ daughter, Charlene Benton, and confirmed that Jawara stole $1,100 in money orders from the 64-year-old woman.

Roberson said Jawara cashed one of the money orders himself on Nov. 8, and signed three others over to a now-defunct spa in North Atlanta on Nov. 20.

In an interview with police, Jawara confessed to stealing Pounds’ money orders, Roberson said. He first told police that he used the three money orders at the spa to get a colon cleansing, but later said his ex-wife owned the spa and cashed the money orders for him.

The police began investigating after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution profiled Pounds in a story about Jawara that ran on July 24.

The AJC filed an Open Records Act request with Atlanta police for theft reports at Grady dating back to January 2007. Following up on several of those cases, the newspaper in June contacted Pounds’ daughter.

Benton had a hospital document with Jawara’s name on it and thought Jawara was responsible for taking her mother’s money orders, so she paid to have the money order receipts mailed to her. They arrived in her mailbox about three weeks ago, she said.

“It’s a burden off of me,” Benton said Tuesday. “When I got them out of the mailbox, I just dropped.”

Benton had reported the theft to Atlanta police in November 2007, but nothing came of it. The police reopened the investigation when contacted by the AJC and presented with the findings.

Benton had told her mother that she would find out what happened to the missing money orders before she died.

“I had promised her, so I was determined,” Benton said. “I told her, ‘You can finally rest in peace now.’ “

Jawara, who has been fired, previously was charged with stealing wedding rings from two other patients who were brought to Grady’s emergency room in April. Those cases have not yet been resolved in court.

Jawara was taken to Fulton County Jail on Tuesday. His bond had not been set as of Tuesday afternoon.