A Florida social worker stole $68,000 from an Alzheimer's patient, state says

MIAMI — What was in a social worker’s wallet? A Capital One card on which she made almost $100,000 worth of payments, West Palm Beach police say, by ripping off an Alzheimer’s patient and a dying patient under her care.

In Palm Beach County court, Port St. Lucie’s Megan Bernat pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of exploitation of an elderly person and money laundering in the case involving the deceased patient. Online court records say Bernat, 46, hasn’t entered a plea to those same charges plus fraudulent use of personal identification information in the case of the Alzheimer’s patient under her care.

Professionally, Bernat didn’t bother to answer a Florida Department of Health administrative complaint detailing the charges in the Alzheimer patient’s case. So, the Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling revoked her license on Wednesday.

Bernat had been a licensed clinical social worker in Florida since Dec. 16, 2010 with no previous discipline problems. Taking her name to the St. Lucie County civil case records, however, reveals Bernat’s habit of using credit cards, then not making even minimum payments for months. This led to past due amounts of $761, $553 and $1,202 in 2021 and credit card companies filing civil suits against Bernat in 2023 and 2024.

In July 2025, a financial adviser at Boca Raton’s American Asset Management noticed something wrong with $65,124 of transactions involving his client, “S.M.”

Card games

An arrest report said the advisor saw that the $65,124 had come out of S.M.’s TD Bank account, and, through mobile payments paid down the balance of a Capital One card — but not S.M.’s Capital One card. The advisor told West Palm Beach police that S.M. lived at MorseLife’s West Palm Beach retirement community facility, she had dementia and her direct case worker, Bernat, had access to all of S.M.’s financial information.

When detectives visited S.M., they found a septuagenarian woman who couldn’t remember her age, her brother’s age or her cell phone number; had no idea how to make online payments; and couldn’t tell detectives anything about the activity on bank statements when shown to her. And, she was virtually alone — no kids, a deceased husband and an older brother who lives in another state.

“She explained that Bernat takes her to TD bank, assists her with all of her needs, that she holds an important position at the facility, that she ‘absolutely’ trusts her, and has known her since she entered the facility,” the arrest report said.

But, S.M. also said she wouldn’t want to “help out” Bernat financially and she’d have a problem with someone taking her money without direct permission.

Upon checking the TD Bank account, the arrest report said it found 55 payments from that account to Bernat’s Capital One card from Feb. 25, 2023 through June 10, 2025 for a total of $68,540. The card was used to pay Publix, Amazon, Instacart, DoorDash, Allstate, SunPass, Walmart, for car service and maintenance, a “Calming Heat Sauna” that cost hundreds of dollars and pharmacy bills.

Bernat opened her Capital One credit card account on Jan. 28, 2023. The first payment made on that card was with S.M.’s TD Bank account on Feb. 25, 2023 for $300, said the arrest report, “indicating that Bernat opened the account with the intent to pay her bills with [S.M.’s] banking information.”

After the financial advisor reported the suspected fraud to Capital One, a hold got slapped on the account. The arrest report says Capital One recorded a call on July 25, 2025, during which Bernat, “called Capital One identifying herself by name and inquired as to the fraud hold on her account. The representative requested additional information from Bernat because the account did not pull up on their end.”

The mobile phone number Bernat called Capital One from, detectives noted, was the same as her work number on a business card she had given them.

Life stops, the money doesn’t

Bernat was arrested in 2025 on charges related to S.M. and was released from Palm Beach County jail after posting $175,000 bond. But, while checking around MorseLife on Bernat, detectives say they heard about another of her patients, “I.R.”

“Certified MorseLife records show I.R. moved into MorseLife on Dec. 30, 2021, and that Megan Bernat was assigned as his full time care manager,” an arrest report said. “Records also show that (he) had 18 different medical problems, including dementia, and needed assistance doing his laundry, getting dressed, going to the bathroom, walking, etc.”

Detectives say certified Wells Fargo records show I.R.’s account was used for 30 payments to a Capital One card account and the unique transaction numbers match the same payments made to Bernat’s Capital One credit card account.

I.R. died March 15, 2024.

Bernat, the arrest report said, used I.R.’s “personal bank account number to pay her Capital One credit card 30 times for a total of $31,295.28 over the course of about one year. Seven payments were made after he entered hospice care, to which he was referred March 9, 2024.

“Six payments were made after he died.”