Some of the victims can’t speak. To get out of bed and move around, they need walkers and wheelchairs. They lost their memory. They move into a nursing home, there to take care of them.
But instead they are subjected to sexual violence.
Across the country in hospitals of this type are happening unimaginable things — defenceless elderly people are raped and subjected to violent sexual assault people who get paid to for the elderly cared for.
It is impossible to determine exactly how many people in these institutions are victims of violence. But after an exclusive analysis of data on the state of Affairs in the scale of individual States and the entire country, and conversing with experts, representatives of regulatory authorities and relatives of victims of violence, CNN journalists found out that this little discussed problem is far more widespread than you would imagine.
But even more alarming is the fact that in many cases nursing homes and in charge of their government officials almost (or does) do nothing to prevent it or stop it.
Sometimes the reason is elementary — and even deliberate — negligence. In other cases, employees of nursing homes and administrators are not able to do anything to protect the victims, who can’t remember what happened to them, or even to identify their rapists.
In the cases reviewed by CNN, the victims and their relatives failed to achieve anything throughout the proceedings. Nursing homes were reluctant to investigate the incident and report them to the police because of the reluctance to believe the accusations — or the desire to hide them. Police believed from the outset that these charges are questionable, waving away the possible victims because they suffered from loss of memory or gave confused testimony. And because, in order to recognize the validity of the charges, it is necessary to perform a variety of conditions, state regulatory authorities did not see patterns in the multiple accusations against a single person caring for elderly patients
It is because of these systemic failures are particularly difficult to the victim to get justice and the criminals even easier to avoid punishment.
“In his 83 years, being unable to speak, unable to resist, she was even more helpless than at that time when she was a little girl left their homeland, fleeing. In fact, when she was raped, she was defenseless as a baby. According to her dignity, which she always kept throughout his life and which was already ruthlessly humiliated as a result of Alzheimer’s disease, this man had dealt the final crushing blow. I see in all this the tragic irony… is that what she was most afraid of when I was a young girl, fleeing and leaving the homeland, happened to her in the last years of her life when she was most vulnerable”.
Maya Fischer (Fischer Maya) spoke these words in 2015, in his statement in court during sentencing, the orderly, who was convicted in the rape of her mother. Holding back tears, Fisher recounted the story of the life of his mother, remembering how the young girl along with her family fled from Indonesia in order not to fall into the hands of the Japanese soldiers who raped and killed young girls. And so several decades later, become a victim of someone whose job was to take care of it.
18 Dec 2014 at 4:30 am the nurse who worked with George Kingma (George Kpingbah) at the medical center Walker Methodist Health Center in Minneapolis, and saw him in a room of 83-year-old Sonya Fischer (Sonja Fischer) lying on the elderly woman. There on the bed lay her open diaper. When the witness noticed that the 76-year-old nurse performs specific movements, she realized what was happening was sexual abuse.
In the end Kimba pleaded guilty to committing violent crimes of a sexual nature in the third degree against a mentally ill person or person who were in a helpless condition, and was sentenced to eight years in prison. During sentencing, the judge, referring to Kinga emotional speech, told him that he not only destroyed the life of his victim and her relatives. He violates the trust that people have nurses who have direct access to the sick and elderly.
“You abused the official position, our trust, said judge Elizabeth cutter (Cutter Elizabeth) sentencing. — Your actions have far-reaching consequences…. They affected all the people in this institution. For everyone who is in this establishment. On everyone who works within it. They affect the interests of everyone who is forced to send their loved ones in nursing homes”.
During the court session Kingba apologized and said that he was going to bring in prison the Bible. His lawyer asked for leniency. According to him, Kingba he survived the difficulties and trials as a refugee, forced to leave Liberia after he had been killed many members of his family. And, as the lawyer said, referring to judge what Kingma made his only “barbaric crime”, it is quite peculiar.
However, according to court records, discovered by journalists from CNN, the Prosecutor’s office found that the investigation against Kirby in connection with allegations of violent acts of a sexual nature carried out more than once. As follows from the records in personnel files obtained by the Prosecutor during the investigation and reviewed by CNN, Kingbo three times suspended from work, when the leadership of Walker Methodist investigated numerous allegations of sexual abuse against patients — including at least two incidents in which he was the Prime suspect.
The first complaint was received in 2008 when police investigated a claim that he had sexual intercourse with the 65-year-old patient suffering from multiple sclerosis. In another case, 83-year-old blind and deaf woman who lived in the same part of the building that the mother of Maya Fisher, said she was raped several times — and each time it occurred at midnight. Police investigated her statement for only seven months before violence has been Sonya Fisher. Although the woman was unable to identify the rapist, Kingbo was suspended from work at the medical center — and several other male staff that were on duty in the night shift, during which allegedly occurred cases of violence.
Evidence supporting the validity of these charges, neither the centre nor the state government is not found. For many years Kingba continued to work in the Walker Methodist center in night shift. Up until that early morning in December 2014 it is not found at the crime scene.
In this case, the Department of health of Minnesota found that the administration of health care companies Walker Methodist took immediate action to ensure the safety of patients, and immediately fired Kingbo. The state government also noted that earlier Kingba held in the institution with the necessary training on prevention and identification of signs of abuse. In the end, Walker Methodist prosecuted for dishonesty and causing harm was not raised, and guilty of violence has been recognized only Kingba.
Maya Fisher could not know about the previous accusations against Kirby known journalists CNN. But she filed for Kingbo to the court, and he agreed to the unusual deal in which he had to pay a huge sum of $ 15 million as punishment — if they will commit violence.
The management of the center Walker Methodist declined to comment on previous allegations against Kirby that had worked there for about eight years, but said in his statement that cooperating with the authorities, and that “the care and well-being of all patients in our institution we pay very close attention.”
CNN journalists appealed to the relatives of other patients who had previously reported being sexually assaulted at the medical center Walker Methodist in a time when it worked Kingba (although in any case the suspect is not considered). According to them, officials immediately rejected the complaints of the patients, calling them hallucinations, or fantasies.
“The leadership center Walker Methodist, of course, did not take the necessary measures to deal with what happened to my mother and other patients, and should be punished,” — said the son of the first alleged victim, after hearing from journalists CNN that Kingba convicted of rape.
According to the son of another alleged victim who accused the unknown rapist, he is pissed because it said that one nurse received several similar complaints. If he knew about it, he said, he would have reacted to the statement to his mother about sexual abuse more seriously. But then he believed in the leadership of Walker Methodist.
The Department of health of Minnesota, the CNN reporters said that state law prohibits to name the person in respect of whom the investigation is conducted by charges not confirmed by evidence, regardless of the number of applications from such accusations.
But both relatives of the two alleged victims of sexual violence also expressed doubts in regard to the state Department of health. How effective is its oversight if its employees were aware of the existence of numerous reports of violence in the Walker Methodist center, and they still could not intervene?
After more persistent questioning, departmental officials told CNN that the reports came at a time when the documents are processed on paper, and that they are working on upgrading the system, hoping to get the opportunity to “mark the following statements”.
Sexual violence, “put on stream”
Some of the records about the alleged sexual violence are contained in the judicial records filed in civil and criminal courts in the framework of the claims against the nursing homes, boarding schools and boarding houses for the elderly and disabled, as well as their employees. Other incidents are stored in the detailed reports generated by the commissions responsible for investigating crimes in the sphere of healthcare on the state level.
One of the inmates of nursing homes in North Carolina, weighing only 35 pounds and suffering from such a serious cognitive disorder that was not able without assistance to perform basic daily tasks, reported that the orderly, closed the door, pulled her head to his and forced her to perform oral sex.
In another case, a male nurse raped a nursing home patient in Texas. He ejaculated in my mouth and on the chest of the victim. When he left, she, desperate to save at least some evidence of a crime, spat out the semen on the bra and kept it unwashed for three weeks. “It’s the only thing I have” she said later investigators.
In Iowa woman who could not walk without a Walker and to wash, said that the orderly raped her in the shower. But the management of the nursing home never reported it to the relevant authorities, as the orderly left the country.
88-year-old woman from California, in which there was only one man — her husband, with whom she lived for almost 70 years, said that he woke up in his bed in the nursing home and noticed that her catheter removed and the bed wet. The next thing she remembered was unknown to the medic, who was looking at her naked body. She told police she remembered his words: “this is why I love my job.” A few weeks later the woman complained of severe vaginal pain and “weeping blisters”, and subsequently, she was diagnosed with incurable genital herpes. The identity of the alleged offender is still not installed.
Finally, in a small town in North Carolina, the medic continued to work for many years, despite numerous reports of alleged cases of sexual violence. Only after one of the nurses had the courage and reported the assault to the police, he was fired and arrested. 58-year-old Luis Gomez (Luis Gomez) is now in jail awaiting trial and maintains his innocence.
In most cases, studied by CNN reporters, the perpetrators acted alone. But in some cases committing violence they were guided by the herd mentality. And the victims were not just women.
For several months, a group of nurses home for the elderly and disabled in California mocked and humiliated five patients, photographing them and taking on video to share with other employees. One of the victim — 56-year-old man with cerebral palsy was forced to walk around naked. Another elderly man with palsy, who could barely speak — much squeezed the nipples and penis as well as forced to eat feces from his own diaper. He was afraid that the assailants would kill him. Although nurses and deprived of certificates of qualification, the investigation conducted by the society for the protection of the rights of persons with disabilities of the state of California, it became clear that many of them never appeared in court.
Another group of young nurses in the town of albert Lea, Minnesota, abused at least 15 men and women, many of whom suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Nurses beaten, pushed and groped patients, grasping his chest. One of the patients they inserted fingers into the anus. They grabbed his side’s crotch and laughed. One nurse pulled fear anything and sat down the patient on his knees — simulating intercourse and roughly squeezing it. “In truth, I was outraged by the rudeness and utter disregard and disrespect to human dignity,” later told the judge. The two muchitelnitsa, which at the time was 18 years old, and whom the court found guilty of misbehavior by a medical staff, stayed in jail for 42 days. Other young nurses appeared before the juvenile court and any jail time received.
The problem is not studied
Despite the long list of abuse and violent acts detailed in the records of the government services, comprehensive data reflecting the total number of incidents of sexual offences recorded in the medical institutions, which includes the elderly, the scale of all countries yet.
Commission for the investigation of violations in the health care system consider all of the abuse, was in nursing homes and homes for the elderly and disabled, information on which comes in the form of reports from the institutions themselves or in the form of complaints addressed to the authorities of the state from witnesses, relatives or victims themselves. With regard to nursing homes, these investigations and regular inspections carried out as a rule, state governments on behalf of the Federal centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who control more than 15 thousand nursing homes that receive state compensation for the care of many elderly patients. How health care administered by States and agencies of the Federal government then use this information to evaluate and ranking, and assignment of penalties the worst offenders.
CNN conducted a survey among health departments and other organizations in the oversight of medical institutions providing long-term care in all 50 States. In those States, which could provide at least some data, the survey results vary considerably.
For example, the survey in Illinois, in 2013 it was 386 applications from patients of nursing homes about sexual abuse, while in 201 of the reported incidents were committed by nurses. In Hawaii in the period from 2011 to 2015 was reviewed eight cases of sexual violence and in five cases featured nurses. When state governments have conducted further analysis to determine how many charges were substantiated, the results showed that very often accusations remain unproven. And the reason is either that the need to overcome serious obstacles associated advanced age of the victims, or the fact that evidence was destroyed either by lack of interest of the management of nursing homes and regulatory authorities in the investigation.
Of the 386 charges in Illinois were upheld 59. And in Texas, of the 251 complaints of sexual violence in the 2015 financial year, evidence was obtained only in 11 cases. According to the results of a survey conducted in Wisconsin over the past five years, none of the reported cases of sexual violence evidence could not be found.
But in most States the authorities can’t tell you how often in the investigation of the violent acts were cases of sexual violence, and experts often claim that the allegations of sexual abuse are not allocated in a separate group and are treated together with other types of violence.
And at the Federal level, special tracking of all alleged sexual abuse of power is not carried out.
In accordance with the Federal data provided by the Agency for social services of people living in special medical institutions for the period since 2000, in institutions providing long-term care (including nursing homes and boarding schools/boarding houses for elderly and disabled), there were more than 16 thousand complaints of sexual violence. But the Agency warned that this figure does not include all cases but only those where a certain part in the consideration of complaints received by the ombudsmen for needing long-term care (acting as lawyers for persons living in nursing homes, boarding schools, etc.).
The centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the allegations of forced acts of a sexual nature are included in the group containing all types of violations — for example, physical abuse or financial abuse. According to representatives of agencies, this is due to the fact that they are taken seriously for all types of offenses. At the request of CNN, the Agency has conducted specialized searches using key words related to sex. But since not every case of violence was sexual in nature, and the CNN reporters had to consider each case individually to filter out all the extraneous links.
As follows from the report, in the period from 2010 to 2015 226 nursing homes have been fined because they failed to protect patients from violent acts that have been confirmed and qualified as sexual violence. While about 60% of cases, were appointed fines totaling more than $ 9 million — while funding for Medicare and Medicaid was forever denied only 16 institutions. (Because the Federal government controls only nursing homes, this analysis was not included boarding schools and boarding houses for the elderly people).
But these statistics allow you to assess the situation only to a minor degree, because they do not feature many cases where nursing home fined for improper actions in dealing with the complaints related to sexual violence — from the illiterate of the investigation to conceal the facts.
Using reports on results of checks for the period from 2013 to 2016 and a similar keyword search (“sex”, etc.), CNN conducted its own detailed analysis.
As a result, journalists CNN has independently established that the Federal government during this period was fined more than a thousand nursing homes because their leadership improperly considered or failed to prevent alleged cases of rape, sexual assault or forced sex in their institutions. (This includes some cases for which information was provided to centres operating in the framework of the Medicare and Medicaid programs). For that period about 100 of these institutions were fined repeatedly.
Complaints and allegations that are not grounds for imposing a fine, and that authorities are calling “defective”, in such reports Medicare are not included. In addition, as shown by studies conducted on a national scale, many victims of rape typically do not report violence committed actions. So these figures probably represent a fraction of the alleged cases of sexual violence in nursing homes across the country.
At least 25% of the cases reviewed, violent actions of sexual character was committed by nurses, nurse/nurses and other nursing homes, and only a small fraction of the visitors of the institution (including family members) or unknown persons. Although in most cases concerned sexual violence among patients in relation to other allegations against nurses and other employees of institutions tend to be much more serious and involved such actions as forced sex, oral sex, penetration with fingers and other forms of sexual violence.
The description of violence given in these reports, controversial — from feelings of annoyance, pity to disgust.
One of the nurses admitted that they urinated in the shower when there was his ward, showed her my erect penis, kissed her, and then warned that she didn’t tell anyone. The nurse overheard a conversation between two nurses about how someone sat the patient down on his knees and performed an erotic dance, causing the patient ejaculated. There was a case when I discovered the woman, choking and gasping, trying to fight off the patient, whose penis was in her mouth. And once visitors who came to its close cousin (which was connected to the system probe power), watched a video, filmed on a camera hidden in the room in a soft toy, and saw that the nurse repeatedly raped her.
Analysis conducted by CNN showed that the cause of the problems in many respects are themselves homes for the elderly. Over 500 institutions have been fined for not carry out thorough investigations of incidents of sexual abuse and did not report them to the authorities, or have not carried out a proper screening when hiring is not the subject of were those seen in violence in the past. One Director of the nursing home told the inspector that “if the institution reported all incidents and complaints, it would be very much and to the Supervisory authorities of that state also would not like”.
And because incidents and complaints are not properly investigated or they are not reported to the relevant authorities, it is difficult to determine how many of the alleged cases of sexual abuse had been proven and became an occasion to excitation of criminal case. But it was at least several hundred cases, when the perpetrators themselves have admitted, or when information has been received from witnesses of violence.
Amid reports of the violent acts of a sexual nature there were hundreds of testimonies describing the chaos that is happening in these institutions:
There’s patients get in bed with other patients, but also to steal each other’s food. Run like crazy through the corridors. Send people knives and other similar items. Suffer from hallucinations — it seems that out of my head crawl out of the snake, and behind the curtains hiding the little boys. Pissing in the trash bin. Drink alcohol and use drugs. Fall asleep in the tub. Steal a Walker. Stifling people and attacking them with fists, hit with parts of wheelchairs. Run away, out through the Windows. Drink lotion and cleaner plates.
Such a complex and unfavorable situation is partly the reason that serious sexual violence can be noticed.
Uncontrolled “epidemic”
It is rarely speak, but sexual violence in those institutions, whose task is to care for the elderly, is a longstanding problem — similar cases happened decades ago.
This is happening all over the country. In cities, in suburbs and in rural areas. In nursing homes, where the poor are covered by Medicaid. And in centres, for which people pay thousands of dollars of their own savings. The owners of these institutions are huge corporations and regional networks, as well as nonprofit organizations and small family businesses.
And this problem becomes increasingly relevant as the number of “elderly population” is growing and according to forecasts between 2010 and 2050 the number of Americans over the age of 65 years will increase more than twice.
However, these institutions, which currently has more than a million senior citizens usually are paying nurses low wages (about 11-12 dollars an hour), so to draw on this work to qualified professionals and to provide them with opportunities that they didn’t quit, quite difficult. And often the most dangerous time of day — night shift workers looking for order in the institution is small.
Violence is “epidemic,” says Marc Kozeradsky (Mark Kosieradzki), a lawyer from Minnesota who has represented some of the victims and their families — including Maya Fisher, the woman who told the court about the rape of his mother. “Predators think elderly patients are easy prey. These patients often suffer from dementia. They can’t say what happened, or they don’t believe as many people do not think it is possible that 28-year-old nurse wanted to rape someone’s grandmother.”
Kozeradsky and other experts who protect the interests of older people say that in the United States and across the country has strict laws, according to which registration and investigation of cases of violence are mandatory. The problem, according to them, is that in nursing homes, these laws are not always respected. And while Federal officials and representatives of state authorities told CNN that the regulatory authorities are actively investigating the complaints and attract the management of nursing homes to justice, critics argue that the control over their execution is not rigid. And often investigations by agencies and officials of States, at best, superficial — they are not as thorough and do not include any complicated actions necessary to collect evidence and substantiate the claims.
Many of these nursing homes in a timely manner to inform the authorities about the facts of violence, as required by Federal law, and assist in investigations. But in many cases the use of sexual violence revealed by CNN, the leadership of the nursing homes themselves did not take measures to prevent such acts of violence as the brutal rape and forced sex.
In these institutions, complaints and accusations usually are questioned or rejected, because the victims suffer from cognitive disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. Workers often do not have the special training needed in order to recognize the signs of sexual violence, information on sexual violence does not reach the relevant authorities. In addition, it is possible that the main of the guide is reputation and hassle-free existence of their enterprises — managers often fear that with the advent of the investigators in the institution experiencing financial difficulties, can be identified and other problems that creates the risk of closing the nursing home or the commencement of costly litigation.
But the worst thing of all is that those managers and employees who actively hindered investigations.
“There are some situations when they do not understand that it happened and they don’t want to believe it. They just don’t get it, says Ann Burgess (Ann Burgess), a well-known nurse and teacher of nursing at Boston College dealing with the assessment and treatment of older people who are victims of sexual violence. — There are other cases when they try to hide it…. They blame the victim.”
In one institution in the state of Colorado in a medical rehabilitation center for the elderly and disabled in Broomfield (Broomfield Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation Center) — orderly Antonio Nieto (Antonio Nieto) is already accused of raping a woman right in her bed, when the report came through from another woman. In Prosecutor’s office declare that the management of the centre has allowed Nieto to return to work after he allegedly committed the first sexual assault, because it found that the statement of the patient “unfounded”. After the first incident in the centre of the new leadership, and according to him, the nurse was allowed Nieto to return to work only after the police said that the investigation has stalled, and is likely criminal charges will not.
After another victim, he was fired. In the end, Nieto sentenced to 24 years in prison. Center in Broomfield paid 51837 dollars in fines — a paltry sum compared to the millions that he has received an annual state compensation for the care of patients.
Last year when he was arrested the cook of the nursing home Beau Provence Memory Care in Louisiana for the alleged rape of a 78-year-old patient, the Director Julie Henry (Julie Henry) immediately spoke to the local media with an emotional statement, saying that management and workers are “shocked and disappointed”. But soon after Henry was arrested on charges that he developed a complex plan to hide that cases of sexual violence. According to police, she tried to prevent the investigation and ordered staff not to report the incident. She asked the staff of the boarding school to give her all the proof she then allegedly destroyed. Chef Jerry Kahn (Jerry Kan) was charged with committing rape in the first degree, but he did not plead guilty. The case isn’t dropped, and his lawyer declined to comment.
Director Henry formal charges are not filed, and the case is pending. According to her lawyer, he is confident that as a result of further investigation, Henry released. “The patient and the chef Kahn initially denied the incident, entering all confusing and giving reason to doubt that the incident took place. When it became known that the incident was still, Ms. Henry began to cooperate with the police and continues to do so” — he said in the email. Representatives of the orphanage said that contact with the police and with the state health Department to “verify the facts underlying these allegations,” however, they said that I can’t comment on the investigation.
Even in nursing homes where there were accusations of an organized cover-UPS, the documents reviewed by CNN, showed that the evidence had not been saved. For example, a patient who is declared the violence were sent to shower, or evidence at the crime scene could be destroyed — the sheets were sent to the Laundry. As a result of possible evidence in the form of DNA was lost.
Minnesota officials gave the 89-year-old patient of a nursing home Edgewood Vista in a psychiatric ward of a local hospital after she reported that she was raped. 28-year-old certified medic Merv Andrew (Andrew Merzwski) admitted that he had sexual intercourse with the patient but said that it happened by mutual consent. The Director of the nursing home believed him and blamed the victim (who suffered from senile dementia), saying the nurse examined the victim-the expert in work with rape victims that the patient is always “flirting”.
“She (previously) complained about the situation in the nursing home, and she was locked in the room — told CNN nurse examiner Theresa Flessig (Theresa Flesvig). — It felt like a prison. It seemed to her that she’s being punished”. An examination on the subject of her rape spent almost a week after the alleged assault. According to Flessig, she found obvious physical signs of violence — one of the biggest ruptures of the vagina, which she had ever seen. Merv pleaded guilty to committing a sexual offense in 2014 was sentenced to 53 months in prison, and the officer who defended him, the state government was subjected to disciplinary punishment. Merv’s lawyer declined to comment.
The management of the nursing home stated that he could not comment in detail on the case, citing privacy concerns, but still acknowledged that officials have learned lessons from the incident. “We realized that we were not ready for such things, says Michael Johnson (Michael Johnson), head of Department of nursing Edgewood Management Group. — We have to work better.”
Sometimes the police and investigators of the state also do not take complaints seriously. In one case, the police report reviewed by CNN, citing the official statement, in which the grounds for refusal to seriously address the complaint of the victim indicated that she is “a fan of the TV series “Law and order””. “It seems that hallucinations are somehow connected with the episodes of the series, writes the officer. In the result, no one was detained, the analysis of biological material for evidence of the rape not been made, and the case was closed.
“In this case the “victim” has already made similar statements in relation to suspects that do not exist and are not physically able to perform the actions, in which she accuses, says in a statement, the police Department sent to CNN. — The “victim” suffers from mental illness and hallucinations, her statements are contradictory and unfounded.”
In the case of orderly Kingba in Minnesota, a state investigator wrote that the first alleged victim “has long been wrongly and repeatedly accused of male nurses in unacceptable sexual behavior” and “sexual promiscuity and the violation of boundaries”. When CNN showed the report to the victim’s son, he said that the characteristic does not correspond to reality.
Answering a question from CNN on this subject, the representative of the Department of health of Minnesota, said that these statements were taken seriously and investigated. “The passage of time and in accordance with the current practice of reporting and writing, the Department is concerned about the wording in the statement and apologizes to the family for this tactless statement,” — said the Agency.
Although rapists like Kirby was the result of their crimes behind bars, many charges never filed.
According to a study conducted among the elderly with the financial support of the National Institute of justice, the older the victim, the less likelihood that the offender will be convicted of sexual assault. And even less likely that victims who lived in homes for the elderly, wait, when their rapists was charged, and convicted.
Moreover, victims suffering from senile dementia and other diseases are often considered to be so unreliable witnesses, even those cases in which the offender admits to committing a crime can result in the fact that they refuse to consider, or the defendant almost never bear the punishment. This is what happened in the case of Walter Martinez (Walter Martinez), a male nurse from St. Louis, who wrote a letter of resignation and in it he admitted committing sexual abuse against two elderly patients. He was to stand trial on charges of rape, and he faces many years in prison. In the end, Martinez got two years probation after alleged victims died or their dementia was so severe that they were unable to testify.
His lawyer told CNN reporters that despite the resignation, Martinez admitted his guilt in committing acts for which he was charged, and ready to defend themselves in court. “Mr. Martinez sought psychological help, get advice, and recognized that in the performance of their regular job duties he had thoughts of a sexual nature. Because of these thoughts he felt a strong sense of guilt, and it was then that in his letter of resignation he used the term “sexual violence”,” — explained the lawyer in an email.
In the case of a woman from Texas, who for several weeks had kept her bra as evidence, the suspect was arrested and charged with the alleged rape. But, as follows from the court’s records, prosecutors failed to preserve evidence and testimony of the alleged victim. Last year, the case was dismissed, despite the fact that genetic examination of biological material preserved in the bra, and the material taken from the accused showed a DNA match. The lab says that the probability that the DNA might belong to another person, is less than 1:983 trillion.
Even those nursing homes that actively hinder the investigation or conceal the violence, often receive only minimal penalties. The vast majority of nursing homes that have reports of regulatory authorities is recorded with terrible facts that are still working, accepting new patients.
“How difficult is it to close them? Almost impossible, says in-house counsel non-profit organization California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, advocating for reform of the system of care for the elderly Chicotel Tony (Tony Chicotel). The closing of a nursing home is the worst nightmare for the regulatory authorities of the States, because the residents of these institutions often have nowhere to go.”
So instead, the regulatory authorities of the States to levy fines and stop payments under the Medicare and Medicaid programs in the hope to bring these nursing homes into compliance. But even in the case of fines (which, according to the centers for Medicare and Medicaid, must force these institutions to resolve this problem as soon as possible), these penalties are often incredibly small.
When a nursing home in Texas failed to take appropriate action after an elderly man, according to him, raped and drugged, the authorities punish the institution, appointed him a fine in the amount of 116.5 thousand dollars, and has suspended payment of compensation of cost of care for new patients. But the penalty was ultimately reduced almost to half due to “financial difficulties” faced by the nursing home. And the suspend state compensation lasted only 11 days.
A nursing home in California, whose leadership has allowed certified nurse to work in a few weeks, despite reports that he had repeatedly committed violent sexual acts against patients (and kissed and stroked her Breasts) was fined by the state for the sum of 22 thousand dollars.
There is also Walker Methodist nursing home in Minnesota, where 83-year-old Sonya Fischer was a victim just the sexual violence from which she fled many years ago. Here she was raped by a nursing home employee, whose leadership knew this person several years ago was accused of committing sexual violence.
“She was not able to speak, couldn’t move — her daughter Maya just a few weeks after the death of his mother last year. — She couldn’t even scream when it happened”.
The nursing home where she was raped, did not suffer any punishment at all.
