An Atlanta woman is heading to prison for the next decade after a jury convicted her of abusing and neglecting disabled men in her mother’s Marietta home.
Sheila Bell Hawkins, 54, was convicted by a Cobb County jury of 16 charges related to operating an unlicensed personal care home where people were abused, neglected or exploited, Cobb County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Kim Isaza said Thursday.
Hawkins' mother, Helen Flournoy-Bell, pleaded guilty last month to charges associated with the home and is serving a five-year prison term, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.
Now her daughter will serve 10 years.
A refrigerator containing bread, bologna and juice was padlocked.
A toilet sat on a concrete slab floor, without the benefit of a door. A nearby tub ran only cold water without a shower curtain for privacy.
The men had no access to toilet paper nor any toiletries.
They were all on Social Security and had no other income available to them, Isaza said. Medicaid and/or Medicare paid for their care as they were clients of Hawkins’ Atlanta-based business, Serene Reflections for Holistic Behavior Wellness, LLC.
Micah Anthony Bell-Hall, 26, who is Hawkins’ son and Bell’s grandson, was the Facilities and Operations Manager of Serene Reflections, and he received payments for one of the victims in his bank account. He pleaded guilty in May to one count of exploitation of a disabled person and was sentenced under the First Offender Act to five years of probation and fined $500.
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