A nurses' assistant at a state nursing home for veterans in Virginia has been sentenced to five years in prison for selling rings that were stripped from the fingers of patients under her care.

Twenty-four-year-old Ashley Michelle Sweeney of Franklin County was sentenced in Roanoke on Tuesday to 24 years in prison, with all but five suspended. She also was ordered never work as a nurse or nurses' assistant again.

The Roanoke Times reports ( http://bit.ly/URurpv) that in tearful testimony, Sweeney said she pawned four wedding bands taken from patients at the Virginia Veterans Care Center to support her drug addiction.

Prosecutors say another aide and Sweeney's former partner took the rings from the patients and gave them to Sweeney. Brittney Heather Cook is scheduled to be sentenced next week.