Jonathan Rosenfeld's Nursing Homes Abuse Blog : Jonathan Rosenfeld's Nursing Homes Abuse Blog | Lawyer & Attorney : Strellis & Field Law Firm | Bed Sores, Senior Neglect, Elder Abuse, Sexual Abuse: Chicago, Illinois

Charges of first-degree rape by instrumentation have been filed against 94-year-old Lester Pendergast.  The charges stem from a September, 2008 incident when a witness caught Pendergast performing a sexual act on a 67-year-old at the Grace Living Center in Oklahoma.  A local hospital used a rape kit to confirm the sexual contact had taken place.

According to a statement released by the facility, “Grace Living Center of Edmond takes the responsibility to protect all residents very seriously. We discovered the incident and immediately took steps to provide for the safety and care of the residents; we reported the matter to the health department and police; and the male resident was promptly removed from the facility. We have cooperated fully with authorities throughout the investigation.”

A Perfect Cause, an organization dedicated to long-term care reform, believes it is in the best interest of other nursing home residents to publicly identify Mr. Pendergast as a sexual offender.  

Oklahoma is slated to be the first state in the country to open a special nursing home dedicated to housing sex offenders exclusively.  Read more about this nursing home rape here.

Sex Offenders In Nursing Homes

Currently, our nursing home system does little to prevent known sexual predators from becoming part of the general nursing home population.  As we can see by this case, age does not take away violent tendencies.  

In order for nursing home residents to live safely, nursing homes should take preventative measures: conducting background screens of all residents, refusing to accept known sex offenders as residents, keeping younger nursing home residents away from the older ones and providing adequate supervision.

According to Kathleen Dugan of The Lebanon Daily News, common signs of sexual abuse include:

Physical signs of sexual abuse:

• Bruising on inner thighs
• Genital or anal bleeding
• Sexually transmitted disease
• Difficulty walking or standing
• Pain and/or itching in the genital area
• Exacerbation of existing illness

Emotional signs of sexual abuse:

• Scared or timid behavior 
• Depressed, withdrawn behavior
• Sudden changes in personality
• Odd, misplaced comments about sex or sexual behavior
• Fear of certain people or of physical characteristics

Related Nursing Homes Abuse Blog Posts On Sex Abuse:

New Nursing Home To Be Built For Sex Offenders 

Alzheimer's Patient + Sex Offender= Trouble 

Solution To Sex Offender Problem- Separate Them

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Unlike nursing home employees, home aides remain a largely unregulated entity.  Many home aides are unlicensed and are not subject to the same criminal background checks as nursing home employees.  The number of home health care workers for the elderly is on the rise.  Currently, there are 1.6 million people employed in the home health care industry.

An incident involving an 85-year-old Priscilla Stovall, who was lethally drugged by her home care aid, draws attention to the need for extensive criminal background checks and ongoing monitoring of home aids who work with the elderly.  Although Ms. Stovall's aid was hired by an agency which specializes in providing home care workers for the elderly, the worker had an extensive criminal background.   The worker had a criminal background involving domestic assault, drug smuggling and had done time in prison.

Conducting criminal background checks for the health care workers can be difficult because there is no centralized database with employee information.  In a recent Michigan State University study sponsored by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, researchers screened 214,167 people who held or sought jobs working with the elderly.  Of the sample group, 5,462 had criminal histories which should have excluded them from the position.  Read more about abuse among home care aids amongst the elderly in the Wall Street Journal here.

Before hiring a home care worker for an elderly person or yourself, keep the following in mind:

• Do a criminal background check through a local police department or licensed investigator
• Check all references
• Conduct face-to-face interviews
• Look to the U.S. Administration on Agings website
• Check names in the national sex-offender registry website

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