Nathan Sutherland pleaded for sexual assault of a vulnerable adult at the Hacienda health care facility in Phoenix on Thursday, where the victim has lived for many years.
Sutherland, the former nurse practitioner who looked after the woman, was accused of getting her pregnant in 2018. The prosecutor said she was in a vegetative state in a healthcare facility. She gave birth at the facility in December 2018.
On November 4 Sutherland is scheduled to be sentenced.
The woman’s family filed a lawsuit against Arizona State and Hacienda Healthcare in May 2019, saying she had been raped multiple times and may have been pregnant before.
As stated in the lawsuit, the Maricopa County Medical Center examined the woman after giving birth and concluded that she had been raped multiple times. The documents said her giving birth is likely to be a repetitive event, which means that she may have been pregnant before.
She suffers from intellectual disability due to childhood seizures, is bedridden, and is unable to speak. But according to her family, she can move some of her extremities, respond to sounds and make facial gestures.
Phoenix police said the woman could not move, she could not communicate. In other words, she was helpless, thus the sexual assault investigation began from day one.
When the woman gave birth to her baby at the Hacienda HealthCare facility, her caregiver did not know that she was pregnant.
The family’s lawsuit alleges that despite signs of delayed menstruation, abdominal mass, weight gain, and leg swelling, her caregiver failed to detect that she was pregnant. As a result, she passed the pregnancy without any proper care and was in a state of malnutrition.
What Claims are compensable in Nursing Home Sexual Abuse in California?
After determining the liability, the victims of sexual abuse in the nursing home can solve the problem of damage or compensation. As with other types of nursing home abuse and cases, nursing home residents who become victims of sexual assault are entitled to economic and non-economic losses due to their experiences.
Victims of sexual abuse can obtain compensation for the following: treatment and consultation costs, medical bills, pain and suffering, loss of quality of life, punitive damages (in some cases).
Unlike different types of personal injury law cases wherein most of the compensation is economic loss, most of the compensation in elderly sexual abuse cases is associated with the non-economic loss of psychological harm due to the incident to the individual.
The Khashan Law Firm, Stands Up for Victims of Nursing Home Abuse in California
Khashan Law is one of the most recognized and respected personal injury law firms, elder abuse, and nursing home negligence litigation law firms in Southern California.
If you or your loved one may be the victim of negligence or abuse in the entire Southern California Nursing Home, you should act quickly and call us at 951.461.2387 for a free consultation with an experienced Nursing Home abuse lawyer.