Alleged sex assault at local psych center led to lawsuit. Here’s how the case resolved
A Milton-based psychiatric center has settled for an undisclosed amount a lawsuit filed on behalf of an elderly woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a fellow patient in her room.
Telecare, which runs the 16-bed Telecare Pierce County Evaluation and Treatment Center, had been accused of failing to protect the 73-year-old woman leading up to and after an alleged assault in May 2020. Daphne Phillips, a Telecare spokesperson, declined to comment Tuesday but said the facility might be able to provide comment later this week.
The suit was filed in March 2023 in Pierce County Superior Court by the alleged victim’s husband, who’s also her power of attorney. It claimed the woman had been raped twice over the course of a few days during a brief stay at the Telecare facility and that staff had left both patients unattended in unlocked rooms.
Telecare, in a response to the legal complaint in court, denied allegations against it and liability. Telecare’s attorneys said the company “complied with the generally accepted standard of care applicable to them under the same or similar circumstances as those alleged in the Complaint,” court records show.
“Telecare provides the highest standards of care to people who suffer from complex and challenging mental health issues with the mission of helping them recover their health, hopes, and dreams,” the company told The News Tribune in response to the lawsuit last year.
The involved parties agreed to settle and dismiss the claims on April 16, according to court records.
Tom Balerud, an attorney representing the plaintiff, declined to comment on the settlement Tuesday, saying that the terms were confidential.
The legal complaint stemmed from a suspicious finding: In May 2020, a facility staff member returning from a bathroom break walked in on a 33-year-old man in the woman’s room. The man, a fellow patient who had a history of institutionalization and incapability to stand trial, had been standing over the woman and pulling his pants up, according to police records obtained by The News Tribune in a public records request.
The woman, who The News Tribune isn’t naming because she is the alleged victim of a sex crime, had been crying, her pants were down, her diaper was ripped and she was lying sideways on her mattress, police records show.
In an interview with police, the man, who stayed in a room across the hall, revealed he had sex with the woman because she “shot him in the head” that she had wanted to perform the act. He was seen in surveillance video, later reviewed by officers, looking down the hallway, entering the woman’s room and closing the door while a Telecare employee was on break.
Police who attempted to interview the woman reported that she was difficult to understand and possibly speaking German, which the legal complaint said was her native language that she had reverted to using due to trauma. In a follow-up interview with police, she was reportedly more talkative but apparently struggled with short-term memory.
The lawsuit claimed the woman was taken to a nearby hospital, where a diagnosis of sexual assault was made. The woman couldn’t identify the suspect, an officer’s report said, although she had mentioned a male patient in his 30s would stop in her room to say hello and check her blood sugar.
Adam Faber, a spokesperson for the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, previously told The News Tribune that no criminal charges were filed due to lack of evidence and inability to prove a criminal case, noting that the woman had been non-verbal and unable to provide information about the event. He also said that no male DNA was recovered from potential evidence collected after the woman was examined at a hospital.
The lawsuit claimed that the alleged assault had been preceded by one three days earlier. In that instance, the woman was taken to a hospital after complaining that her vaginal area hurt, but no rape kit was performed because Telecare staff hadn’t informed the hospital of that alleged attack, according to the suit.
Less than three weeks after being admitted into the facility, the woman was discharged, the legal complaint said, adding that neither she nor her alleged abuser had been moved by staff further apart following the alleged assaults.
This story was originally published April 24, 2024 at 11:00 AM.
