The Widow and the Nurse

Regina Greenhill is a wealthy Jewish widow. A stroke victim, she lives alone in a condominium tower, just across a parking lot from Aventura Mall. Bridget Garcia is a working-class black native of the U.S. Virgin Islands. For nearly two years, Bridget worked as Regina's private nurse, spending up to 16 hours per day cooking Regina's meals, taking her grocery shopping, and escorting her to the library for the books Regina loves to read in bed.

Theirs was far more than an employer-employee relationship. The two women grew so close that Regina began surprising her aide with gifts, including a modest diamond ring and, as a birthday present, a not-so-modest Infiniti automobile. She bought a house and allowed Bridget to live in it rent-free. Although the two women spent every day of the year together, Regina still telephoned Bridget before retiring each night, talking for 15 minutes or so until she removed her hearing aids and rolled over to sleep. They regularly spoke of their love for each other.

From the perspective of Regina's two adult sons, the women were too close. Bridget received the car and the free lodging and the jewelry and who knows what else, they say, by preying on Regina's loneliness and mental frailty.

"There's no doubt there was a strong bond between them," asserts Daniel Greenhill. "But the strong bond was part of Bridget's tactics of gaining control over my mother, to manipulate and take advantage of my mother's weakness recovering from a stroke and other such things. She was taking very, very good care of her and being supportive and even saying she loved her -- but it was all a damned trick."

Daniel and his brother, Joel, fired Bridget this past October. What followed was a series of accusations and counteraccusations that confounded an already complex family melodrama. While the Greenhill sons allege Bridget fleeced their elderly mother, Bridget leveled an even more explosive charge: One of the sons, Daniel, raped and impregnated her in his mother's living room as Regina napped in an adjoining bedroom.

The Aventura police investigated both charges, making no arrest. Tom Ribel, police chief of the small, affluent city, says Bridget's rape account lacked credibility. For one thing she didn't file the charge until more than five months after the alleged incident, after she'd been evicted from her free housing. And according to the police investigation, Bridget's doctor verified that her patient had never been pregnant. Bridget also failed a lie detector test conducted at the request of the rape case's lead detective.

It's unusual to give a polygraph test to the supposed victim, but Chief Ribel clarifies that, as far as his department was concerned, Bridget was a suspect, not a victim. "The lady is a fraud," he declares flatly. "She's taking advantage of elderly people and tapping into their assets. We wanted very much to arrest her for extorting money from [Regina]. She was bleeding assets off the estate."Ribel, it appears, was too quick to condemn the nurse. New Times has documented egregious flaws in the Aventura Police Department's investigation. The doctor who supposedly refuted Bridget's pregnancy claim insists she did no such thing. In fact the doctor believes her patient was indeed raped. One of the foremost lie detector experts in the United States found glaring problems in the police polygraph test. And when this highly respected professional conducted his own polygraph test of Bridget's credibility, he came up with radically different results.

The police never formally interviewed Daniel Greenhill as a suspect in the rape, though Bridget says she told them she could describe his genitals. The police never inspected the torn and stained uniform and underwear Bridget was wearing on the day she says she was attacked, though she still has this clothing. They never tracked down the doctor Bridget claims confirmed her pregnancy.

Furthermore the police never interviewed Regina Greenhill about the alleged rape outside the presence of the attorney who also represents both her sons. This attorney, Michael Snyder, maintained an active presence throughout the rape investigation, regularly faxing material to the police department. So strong was the lawyer's involvement that Bridget sought a restraining order against him, telling the court he was badgering her to accept a payoff to keep her mouth shut. Snyder later secured his own restraining order -- against Bridget. Snyder happens to be the son of Aventura mayor Arthur Snyder.

If Bridget Garcia was offered a payoff, she never took it. Even today, while Regina openly refers to her former nurse as a liar, Bridget remains unwavering in her claim: She was raped. And Daniel Greenhill was the one who raped her.The Aventura city seal is remarkably true to life. It features a sailboat gliding past one of the dozens of bland concrete condominium high-rises that crowd the skyline. Regina Greenhill lives on the tenth floor of one of these condos, the Bonavida. It is a secure and well-maintained building located on a street where elderly men take afternoon strolls wearing white pants and floppy terry-cloth hats. The Bonavida's lobby is all marble and mirrors. A shuffleboard court waits alongside the outdoor pool. The elevators glide smoothly to the tenth floor.

Regina's current nurse answers the door, revealing a living room carpeted in bright pastel shag. A white leather sofa faces the television. In the distance a balcony overlooks the green fairways of the Turnberry Isle golf course. Just off the living room is a small kitchen decorated with fading, garish wallpaper. A tiny woman in a blue nightgown sits at a small table, eating a lunch of fruit-flavored yogurt. A shock of gray hair rises above her head, revealing eyes that are bright and focused. She offers a greeting in a strong voice sweetened by a mild Southern accent. "You'll have to speak up," she says with a broad smile. "I'm hard of hearing."

Regina's smile vanishes, however, at the mention of her relationship with Bridget Garcia. "We're through with all that," she snips. "The case, everything, it's all closed." She refers all questions to her lawyer, Michael Snyder, adding one caveat: "Don't believe anything Bridget says. She is an accomplished liar. She is a very accomplished liar."

Regina was born 87 years ago in Washington, D.C., into a prominent family. Her father helped found the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. Her sister, Miriam Ottenberg, won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting at the now defunct Washington Star. Her mother, Russian immigrant Nettie Ottenberg, helped write the District of Columbia's juvenile-court law. At age 75, after she won funding from the U.S. Senate for one of her pet causes, Nettie became known as the Mother of Day Care. The Ottenberg Bakery, founded by Regina's grandfather Isaac, remains a family-owned Washington institution.

Regina relocated to Florida with her husband, Jerry, an engineer. She raised their two boys and worked as a psychiatric social worker. Even after she retired, Regina remained active. She devoted herself to the National Council of Jewish Women, where she served as vice president of community service. She supported the Democratic Party. After son Daniel chose to settle in the Middle East, she joined the Association of Parents of American Israelis, serving as secretary. Her activities continued even after Jerry died in 1984.

But about five years ago, she suffered a mild stroke. Ever since then she has been in the care of a private nurse, though friends stress that she retains her keen intellect and drive. "Regina is a lovely, refined lady, a tremendous lady," offers Wilma Morrison Friedman, a Bonavida neighbor. "I'm much younger than Regina, yet even into her eighties, she was driving me to Bible-study classes at Beth Torah. She's amazing."

There were problems with the nurse who preceded Bridget. "This woman was very crass and insensitive to Mom," reports Daniel Greenhill during a telephone interview from Israel. "She acted in a dictatorial fashion, arguing, for instance, if you asked her to turn down the kitchen radio instead of keeping it blaring all day long." Neighbors gently complained that Regina sometimes smelled of urine.

In June 1998 the family replaced that nurse with Bridget Garcia. Bridget was 48 years old at the time. Although she was born and reared in St. Croix, she moved to Florida more than 25 years ago at the urging of a sister who had already relocated. In time she married a Honduran man, gave birth to two daughters, and eventually divorced, claiming her husband was too jealous.

While in St. Croix, Bridget typed memos and legal briefs in a lawyer's office. After moving to Florida, she found work folding towels at a Miami Beach hotel. To escape this low-paying drudgery, she attended a vocational school to earn certification as a nursing assistant. Although her occupational choice provided a step up from folding towels, CNAs toil in a low echelon of the medical field, well below registered nurses in both pay and prestige.