Station Hires Reporter Facing Neglect Charge

A news reporter charged with neglecting her bedridden 77-year-old mother, who authorities said died last month of malnutrition, has been rehired by the radio station where she had worked.

Cynthia Jeter Green, 38, of North Hollywood will work part-time as a newscaster at KMNY, a 24-hour financial news station where she had worked last year.

Tom Sheehan, a KMNY spokesman, said he was not certain when Green would begin work. An employee said a posted work schedule indicated that it will be this weekend.

Sheehan called Green a “good researcher, a good reporter, good on-air person and all-around professional.”

Green has worked for several Los Angeles radio stations since moving from Texas four years ago. She lost her job at KMNY, where she worked about six months in 1988, after missing several days of work to care for her mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease.

Sheehan said station officials rehired her partly because they felt compassion for her.

“We realize she had a tremendous amount of responsibility in caring for her mother,” Sheehan said. “It must have been a stressful and heart-wrenching situation for her to be in.”

Green’s mother, Virginia Jeter, died Dec. 26 at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Panorama City several hours after paramedics were summoned to their house on Bellingham Avenue in North Hollywood. Green told paramedics that she feared her mother had suffered a stroke.

Paramedics said they found Jeter lying in a filthy hospital bed. She weighed only 70 pounds and was suffering from malnutrition, skin rot and bedsores. She did not respond to attempts to revive her, police said.

Green is charged with one felony count of endangering an elderly person through neglect, which carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison. Authorities have not decided whether to file a more serious charge that improper care contributed to her death, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lee Harris said.

Green’s attorney, Marc A. Hentell, has said his client is undergoing psychiatric evaluation on his orders.

“I think working without the constant worry of the care of her mother is the best therapy that she could have,” Hentell said. “But it’s still a traumatic experience, not only the death of her mother but that coupled with the criminal charges.”

He called Green’s rehiring “quite an endorsement from her colleagues.”

Green, who could not be reached for comment, is free on $6,000 bail.