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Illegal nursing home operator faces felony charges

“Everybody I care for receives excellent care.”

But Marietta Police would disagree with that assertion from 42-year old Raequel Penny, accused of running an unlicensed nursing home in the basement of a house on Laurel Spring Lane. Now, she faces new felony charges of elder abuse and neglect.

Penny turned herself in to the Cobb County Jail Tuesday night after health inspectors tried to get a look at the facility, but were barred by an employee. Approximately 36 hours later, Marietta Police showed up on her doorstep with a search warrant. But officers say, by that time, Penny and her patients were gone.

Inside the home, detectives found evidence of rotting food and an insect infestation. There was only one toilet in the area where patients were being kept in a room with no door. There were no bathing facilities for the patients in the basement where they lived in small rooms with plywood planks for walls and bed sheets for ceilings.

Speaking on the square in Marietta Thursday, Penny, accompanied by Gerald Rose, president of New Order National Human Rights, refused to explain the reason she left with her patients before police arrived at the house on Laurel Spring Lane. She said she wanted to restore her reputation after what she claimed were outrageous and untrue media reports concerning the discovery of her unlicensed facility.

“It hurts deep, knowing how much I love caring for others,” she told reporters.

Thursday, police said they found two more victims at another unlicensed facility in Atlanta, bringing the total to six. Citing evidence of patient abuse and neglect, the two patients’ detectives said they discovered Atlanta required hospitalization charges against Penny. The charges have now been upgraded to felonies. Authorities also issued a warrant for what they described as an “accomplice” of Penny’s, Terry Catron, who faces similar felony charges.

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