Former nursing home administrator Martha Bell has managed to stave off her five-year federal prison sentence for at least five days.

Mrs. Bell, 60, of West Mifflin, was convicted of health care fraud and making false statements, and missed her date to report to a federal prison Monday, after being admitted late last week to Mercy Hospital with chest pains and numbness on one side of her body.

After she was discharged Tuesday, U.S. marshals immediately arrested Mrs. Bell and took her to the Allegheny County Jail.

However, the next day, she again complained of chest pains. That time, Mrs. Bell was taken to an undisclosed hospital, where she remains under secure guard with no access to visitors.

Thursday, her attorney, Thomas N. Farrell, filed a petition with U.S. District Judge Terrence F. McVerry asking that Mrs. Bell's location be disclosed, and that her husband, Charles Bell, be permitted to see her. He has already spoken to her in a monitored 12-minute phone call.

Prosecutor Leo M. Dillon asked the judge to deny the motion.

"The government suspects that defendant is malingering in order to avoid her prison sentence," he wrote.

Yesterday, Judge McVerry denied Mrs. Bell's motion.

It is unclear when she will be released from the hospital. Mr. Farrell has said she needs to have a heart catheterization.

In addition to her federal sentence, Mrs. Bell was sentenced in state court earlier this month to 22 to 44 months in prison for neglect of a care-dependent person, involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment.

All of the charges against her stemmed from the death of an elderly Alzheimer's patient at the Ronald Reagan Atrium I Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Robinson on Oct. 26, 2001.