Alzheimer's Victim Lands In Jail

An Alzheimer's-stricken man who violated a judge's instructions to stop driving was jailed for two days before he was ordered transferred Friday to a secure nursing home.

Albert Brenner, 75, thinks he has a job as a traveling salesman peddling 1970s-era rotary telephones, his lawyer said.

On Wednesday, Judge Geoffrey D. Cohen ordered Brenner held at a state mental hospital for criminals until his mental health could be "restored" and he can stand trial on battery charges. Cohen said the elderly man posed a danger to the public and himself by insisting on driving.

Brenner was put in the Broward County Jail while waiting for space to open up at the mental hospital.

But on Friday, Judge Michael Kaplan overruled the other judge and said Brenner should be placed in a secure state nursing home. Kaplan set another hearing for Tuesday to decide whether the elderly man is competent to stand trial on the battery charges.

Brenner's lawyer and a psychologist testified that his ability to reason can never be improved and that he did not belong in jail.

"It's not Albert Brenner's fault that he has Alzheimer's," his attorney Betsy Benson said. "We have a person who is not going to become competent, who ... cannot follow the rules and regulations."

Brenner believes he has to get back to work, said public defender Howard Finkelstein. Friends, lawyers and family members have been unable to convince him he no longer works. No family member was in court Friday.

Cohen initially ordered Brenner not to drive as a condition of being released from jail after he was arrested twice in 2002 on battery charges involving his companion, Irene Kaplan, then 86.

A caseworker later reported that Brenner was driving, and last month he was picked up again.

His traffic record includes a citation for running a stop sign.

Alzheimer's causes a deterioration of mental ability and worsens over time. Former President Reagan, who died Saturday, had the disease, and the Alzheimer's Association says it afflicts 4.5 million Americans.

Caseworkers have testified that Brenner's condition has worsened in recent months.