Man molested comatose children at hospital

July 25, 2007

Adapted from CNN.com

On a wintry day, investigators called a respiratory therapist about allegations he had molested patients too sick to defend themselves.

When they asked how many children he molested, investigators said, he looked out his window and asked, “How many snowflakes are there out there?”

At his sentencing hearing, he didn't turn to look as a succession of parents and family members of victims spoke. Some wept, others shook with anger.

As part of a plea deal, the 56-year-old man was sentenced to 45 years and eight months in prison for molesting five of his young, disabled patients and for taking pornographic photographs of others. Prosecutors said he targeted those who were comatose, brain-damaged or too disabled to talk.

“You have violated the trust of your patients, you have violated the trust of your employer, and you have inflicted indescribable anguish on your victims and their families,” the judge said to him.

The man, who told investigators he molested as many as half the children he treated in his 10 years working in the convalescent ward at a children's hospital, stared straight ahead or cast his eyes down at the table in front of him as victims’ relatives spoke.

“I just want you to know it doesn’t matter what you say or how many years you spend in jail, it’s not going to be enough,” a woman, whose daughter is now dead, told him. “I don’t think you have a soul. You’re just an empty human shell.”

Prosecutors said the extent of his molestation will never be known because he targeted patients who were comatose, brain-damaged, or too disabled to speak.

He was arrested last year after investigators tracing pornography through the Internet found tens of thousands of pornographic images on his computer, including photographs he took of himself abusing his patients.

He allegedly confessed to investigators last year when they reached him by phone. When he was arrested, he was living in a trailer in a casino parking lot because his wife had kicked him out of the house.

He worked at the renowned children’s hospital for 25 years, the last 10 at the convalescent home, where the most disabled patients live. The 59-bed convalescent hospital treated 176 patients during his 10 years working there.

“He wishes to apologize to all the victims and their families, said his attorney, who noted that the perpetrator himself had been sexually abused as a boy. “He knows he can never make amends for what he has done.”

Investigators identified just four of his victims: three girls and a boy who were all younger than 14 when the molestations took place. Two of the children have since died. Investigators were never able to put a name to one of the victims, a 2-year-old girl found in pictures.

One parent, whose 10-year-old daughter died last year, three months after investigators discovered her image on the man’s home computer, called it a “parent’s worst nightmare.”

She said her daughter was under the man’s care from the time she entered the long-term facility as a 10-day-old newborn suffering a brain condition.
“During her dying moments, I told her I would see this through,” the woman said outside the courtroom, as she clutched one of her three older daughters.

The man faced up to 165 years if he had been convicted on all counts in a jury trial. Prosecutors said they made a deal in part because they were anxious to spare one of the man’s victims—a teenage girl who claimed he inappropriately touched her buttocks while she recovered from a stroke—the strain of testifying before a jury.
His arrest prompted the hospital to ban cell phones in patient treatment areas—including rooms—and require that doors and curtains around patients be left open most of the time, said a hospital spokesman.

In court, one woman said she had asked her son, who cannot speak because of a breathing device in his throat, whether he had been abused.

“He didn’t give his usual yes or no sign. He just looked afraid,” she said. “And when I said, ‘(He) will never do this to you again,’ he gave me a big smile. That smile broke my heart.”