PITTSBURGH — Laura Stewart thought she was saving her 86-year-old sister from a squalid, unheated Pittsburgh apartment by taking her home to Ohio in what Stewart's attorney called a "mission of mercy."

But police say the elderly woman's hands were bound with duct tape and they labeled the supposed intervention a crime. They charged Stewart, 72, her 76-year-old boyfriend and another man with kidnapping, false imprisonment and related offenses.

According to Pittsburgh police, Stewart, boyfriend Earl Cross and a friend, Darnell Randall, 48, of Pittsburgh, took Evelyn Poynter from her Pittsburgh apartment, which is in a building owned by Stewart. Stewart and Cross drove the duct-taped Poynter to Stewart's home in Shaker Heights, Ohio, on Sunday afternoon, police said.

Police said Poynter's hands were bruised and she had tape residue on them. She was taken to an Ohio hospital for an evaluation, then returned to Pittsburgh.

Speaking from the window of her apartment on Tuesday, Poynter told The Associated Press that she was fine. She chuckled when told that police allege she had been kidnapped.