A former employee of a Pennsylvania healthcare facility was sentenced in federal court on January 26, 2023, for committing federal hate crimes and related offenses involving numerous severely disabled victims. He was sentenced to 204 months’ imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release. He had previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy, ten counts of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, and one count of concealing material facts in a healthcare matter.
According to admissions made during the defendant’s plea hearing, he and a co-defendant were employees of an in-patient healthcare facility located in New Brighton, Pennsylvania. Residents of the facility were diagnosed with a range of severe physical, intellectual, and emotional disabilities, and required assistance with all activities of daily life, including bathing, using the bathroom, oral hygiene, feeding, and dressing. As members of the facility’s direct care staff, the two former employees were responsible for providing this daily assistance to residents.
From approximately June 2016 to September 2017, the defendant admitted that he and his co-defendant engaged in a conspiracy to commit hate crimes against residents of the facility because of the residents’ actual or perceived disabilities. The pair carried out assaults in a variety of ways, including by punching and kicking residents, jumping on residents, rubbing hand sanitizer in their eyes, spraying liquid irritants, including mouthwash, in their eyes and mouths, and in one instance removing a resident’s compression stocking in a manner intended to inflict pain. Several of these assaults were recorded on the defendant’s cell phone. As part of the conspiracy, the defendant acknowledged that he and his co-defendant exchanged text messages in which they expressed their animus toward the disabled residents, shared pictures and videos of residents, described their assaults, and encouraged each other’s continued abuse of residents.
The defendant further admitted that he and his co-defendant were able to avoid detection by, among other things, exploiting their one-on-one access to residents of the facility and the fact that the victims were non-verbal and could not report the defendant’s alleged abuse. Due to their physical disabilities, the residents also were not able to defend themselves against the alleged assaults.
As part of his sentence, the defendant is prohibited from seeking employment following his release from prison at any facility that provides care for juveniles, the disabled, or both.
Compliance Perspective
Issue
Abuse is the willful infliction of injury, unreasonable confinement, intimidation, or punishment with resulting physical harm, pain, or mental anguish. Instances of abuse of all residents, irrespective of any mental or physical condition, cause physical harm, pain, or mental anguish. According to F600 in the State Operations Manual, Appendix PP, residents have the right to be free from abuse, neglect, misappropriation of resident property, and exploitation. Reporting abuse, neglect, and exploitation is mandatory for all nursing facilities. Staff members should understand their role in identifying, reporting, and investigating abuse. At the federal level, hate crime laws include crimes committed on the basis of the victim’s perceived or actual race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability. Most state hate crime laws include crimes committed on the basis of race, color, and religion; many also include crimes committed on the basis of sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability.
Discussion Points
- Review your policies and procedures on preventing abuse, neglect, and exploitation. Ensure that your policies include identifying and reporting abuse, neglect, or exploitation, including that which could be considered a hate crime.
- Train all staff on what constitutes a hate crime and also on their responsibility for preventing and reporting abuse, neglect, and exploitation immediately. Document that these trainings occurred and file the signed document in each employee’s education file.
- Periodically audit staff understanding to ensure that they are aware of the steps that should be taken if they suspect abuse, and their reporting options, including the use of the anonymous hotline. Periodically perform care observations to determine competency and compliance with facility policies for respectful and dignified delivery of care and services to all residents. Determine that all non-communicative residents receive adequate supervision to ensure care is appropriately delivered.
*This news alert has been prepared by Med-Net Concepts, LLC for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal advice.*
