BELLE — Nicole Marie Amdahl of Owensville is being charged with two class A misdemeanors in the Maries County 25th Circuit Court on allegations of abuse of the elderly, disabled or vulnerable person, and stealing.

According to the Probable Cause Statement from Belle Marshal Jerry Coborn, at 11:44 p.m. on Aug. 20, Gasconade Central Dispatch notified the Belle Police that a city resident wanted to file a report and have a follow-up at her residence concerning issues with a nurse sleeping on the job and not taking proper care of a disabled patient. The patient is nonverbal and was born with Pontocerebellar Hypoplasia type 1B, a rare, severe, and inherited neurologic disorder that affects the cerebellum, brain stem, and spinal cord. It is characterized by the degeneration of cerebellar and spinal motor neurons.

Symptoms of the illness include diffuse muscle weakness, progressive microcephaly, developmental delay, hypotonia, poor feeding, spasticity, dystonia, seizures, respiratory insufficiency, and swallowing difficulties. These conditions are serious and require monitoring 24 hours a day, seven-days-a-week.

“When we arrived at the residence and made entry the nurse was asleep on the couch,” Coborn wrote in his statement, adding the family has allegedly found Amdahl sleeping before. “The (family) wants to file charges on Amdahl for neglect and abuse.”

Amdahl, charged with both misdemeanors on Aug. 20, was served on Aug. 23 with a court summons.

According to Missouri Case.net, Count 1 of the charges alleges “the defendant, in violation of Section 565.156, RSMo, committed the class A misdemeanor of abuse of a person with a disability, punishable upon conviction under Sections 558.011 and 558.002, RSMo, in that on or about Aug. 20, in the county of Maries…the defendant knowingly failed to act in a manner to which results in a substantial risk to the life, body or health of a person with a severe disability by going to sleep and was difficult to wake leaving the confidential victim that requires constant supervision unattended.”

Misdemeanor Count 2 alleges Amdahl, “committed the Class A misdemeanor of stealing, punishable upon conviction under Sections 558.011 and 558.002, RSMo, in that on or about Aug. 20, in Maries County, the defendant appropriated nursing care, which services were to be provided to the confidential victim, and the defendant failed to provide the appropriate services by means of deceit because she was sleeping when she was supposed to be providing care to the confidential victim and with the purpose to deprive him thereof.”

The range of punishment for both charges is imprisonment in the county jail or authorized penal institution for a term not to exceed one year; a fine not to exceed $2,000; or both imprisonment and a fine. If money or property has been gained through the commission of the crime, any fine imposed may not be more than double the amount of the offender’s gain from the commission of the crime up to a maximum of $20,000.

According to Maries County Prosecutor Tony Skouby, the actions of Amdahl are reproachable.

“Taxpayers money is paying this lady and she is not watching this child, putting him in serious harm and wasting taxpayer’s dollars,” Skouby began. “And if it’s not wasting taxpayer dollars it is wasting the poor mother’s dollars. It’s disgusting.”

Amdahl has been summoned to appear at 9 a.m. on Sept. 24 in Judge Kerry G. Roweden’s courtroom.