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Patient raped by nurse sues the state
VANESSA HO
23 Nov 2006 12:00 am
A female patient raped by a nurse at Eastern State Hospital sued the state this week, accusing it of failing to protect her from the man officials had investigated for sexual misconduct for nearly a decade.
In 1995, the state-run psychiatric hospital learned that the nurse, Guylin Johnston, had allowed a female patient to sit on his lap, according to hospital records. In 1997, a schizophrenic patient told officials Johnston had had sex with her.
A co-worker complained that Johnston had grabbed her and tried to kiss her. Johnston's girlfriend accused him of beating her with an ax handle. In 2003, a nursing manager wrote about concerns regarding Johnston's "high potential for violence towards others, " the hospital records state.
But in 2004, Johnston was still at the Medical Lake hospital, when a young suicidal woman was admitted.
Assigned to care for her, Johnston instead locked her in a laundry room, groped her and forced her to have oral sex.
Johnston, now 44, was convicted of second-degree rape last year and sentenced to more than nine years in prison.
"The fact this nurse was allowed to work with vulnerable patients is unconscionable," said David Moody, the woman's Seattle-based attorney, who filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Spokane.
"This nurse was a known predator, a man who preyed on vulnerable patients and viewed their disabilities as an open invitation to satisfy his own sick sexual desires."
Moody said the state Department of Social and Health Services, which oversees Eastern State Hospital, knew of Johnston's history, and that he was a "ticking time bomb."
Paramedic's license revoked after child sex crime surfaces
KGW Staff
28 Sep 2006 8:32 am
A man accused of sexually assaulting teenaged girls can no longer be a paramedic but his criminal past has some wondering how he got the job in the first place.
It basically came down to two reasons: For one, at the time, the Washington State Department of Health was not required to do a background check. Still, American Medical Response, the ambulance company that hired the convicted felon claims it did do a background check on him, and he passed.
Shane Shults stands accused of sexually assaulting at least five girls between the ages of 13 and 16, inside his home in Northeast Vancouver between 1998 and 2006, according to police.
He was arrested last May but until then, he had been working as a paramedic for AMR.
Investigators believe Shults was a calculated predator. Legal documents obtained by KGW Northwest Newschannel 8 revealed that police believe Shults injected his young victims with an unknown substance and then assaulted them. And this wasn’t his first arrest.
Washington law does not require him to register as a sex offender because his conviction happened more than ten years ago.
Convicted rapist earns release to halfway house in Sodo
SCOTT GUTIERREZ
21 Sep 2006 12:00 am
A man who once admitted to raping eight women and has spent 11 years in a treatment center for the state's most dangerous sex offenders earned his release Wednesday to a secure halfway house for sex predators in Seattle's Sodo business district.
Mitchell Gaff, 48, could be moved as soon as Monday from the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island after an agreement approved by Snohomish County Superior Court Judge James Allendoerfer. He'll join one other convicted sex predator, Joseph Aqui of King County, who was released earlier this year to the windowless, 24-hour, camera-equipped facility on Spokane Street
In 1984, Gaff broke into an Everett home and raped and tortured two teenage girls, which led to a 10-year prison term. He then was committed under the state's Community Protection Act, which allows the state to hold sex offenders beyond their prison term if they're judged as "sexually-violent predators" who suffer mental abnormalities and are likely to reoffend.
Juries twice voted to keep Gaff incarcerated, the last time during a 2000 trial. Then, last year, his treatment providers found him capable of moving to a less-restrictive environment. Snohomish County prosecutors objected and initially set the case for trial this month.
Instead, Deputy Prosecutor Paul Stern offered an agreement imposing extra-strict conditions in exchange for release, including Gaff's forfeiture of his rights to challenge his status as a sex predator for the next eight years.
Once declared a "sexual sadist," Gaff has shown no behavioral problems in prison and has undergone 4,400 hours of clinical treatment.
Child pornography found at sex predator commitment center
20 Sep 2006 12:00 am
A man detained at the Special Commitment Center for sex predators on McNeil Island is accused of possessing child pornography.
Charging documents say 34-year-old David Lewis was found in his room in January with a videotape depicting young children having sex with men and other children.
Lewis is a convicted child rapist from Columbia County. He told guards he had lent a video to another detainee and when he got it back it had child pornography on it.
Lewis pleaded not guilty to the child pornography charge in July in Pierce County Superior Court. He scheduled for trial next month in Tacoma, but his lawyer is asking for a delay.
State asks judge to lift federal supervision of sex predator center
TRACY JOHNSON
19 Sep 2006 12:00 am
A Seattle judge is considering whether to end a 15-year legal battle that forced the state to improve the way it handles sexually violent predators, who are supposed to get treatment and not prisonlike punishment.
Timothy Lang, assistant state attorney general, asked a U.S. District judge Monday to rule that a state facility for sex predators no longer needs federal oversight.
Lang noted that the state had completed the last step in a long list of court-ordered improvements: It built a new facility in South Seattle aimed at helping give sex predators a way to transition from the state's Special Commitment Center to freedom.
But Richard Turay, who's been locked away as a sex predator for roughly 15 years, told the judge conditions at the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island are still so bad that he'd rather be in prison where he could "die with dignity."
Spokane abuse victims demand lie detector test of Jesuit leader
NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
16 Sep 2006 12:47 am
Advocates for people abused by Catholic priests are demanding that the Northwest leader of the Jesuits take a lie detector test regarding his knowledge of past abuse by the former president of Gonzaga University.
But the Rev. John D. Whitney of Portland, Ore., leader of the Oregon Province of Jesuits, rejected the demand.
"I have neither need not desire to take a polygraph examination to prove myself truthful," Whitney wrote in a letter to SNAP he released to The Associated Press.
Last week, whitney revealed that a search of old records ordered by a federal judge had found documents indicating Leary was involved in the sexual abuse of boys or young men in the 1960s, and that the Jesuits and Spokane police covered up the abuse at the Jesuit-run school.
The documents were found during an investigation involving the late Rev. Michael Toulouse, a Jesuit who is subject of several child-molestation lawsuits. Toulouse was a philosophy professor at Seattle University who died in 1976. Leaders of SNAP immediately disputed Whitney's contention that the abuse cases against Leary had long been forgotten.
"The Jesuits are playing a shrewd PR game: Let's release the awful news first, before the court forces us, so it'll look like we're open," said David Clohessy of St. Louis, Mo., SNAP's national director. "They're giving information only because they've been compelled to do so."
Coe to spend 7 weeks at sex-predator jail as he awaits hearing
The Associated Press
07 Sep 2006 12:00 am
Kevin Coe, convicted of one of the rapes that terrorized Spokane's South Hill neighborhood a quarter-century ago, on Wednesday requested a transfer to a special prison for sexual predators, where he will spend a seven-week delay in the state's efforts to keep him in custody indefinitely.
Coe could spend the rest of his days at that prison if the state Attorney General's Office succeeds in efforts to label him a sexual deviant who is likely to commit more crimes.
Spokane County Superior Court Judge Kathleen O'Connor granted Coe's request to be detained at the special commitment center on McNeil Island and agreed to the delay in the probable-cause hearing to give his lawyers time to study more than 66,000 pages of documents submitted by the state to keep Coe in custody.
She set an Oct. 30 date for the probable-cause hearing, a first step in determining if Coe will remain in custody.
Kevin Coe sex predator hearing postponed to Oct. 30
Associated Press
06 Sep 2006 9:36 am
A hearing to determine whether Kevin Coe will be locked up indefinitely as a sex predator has been postponed in Spokane until October 30th at the request of his lawyer.
The state is seeking a civil commitment after Coe completes a 25-year sentence for Spokane's "South Hill Rapist" case. The defense lawyer says he needs more time to look at evidence and the state's allegations.
Man arrested in rape at care center
Jennifer Sullivan
06 Sep 2006 12:00 am
A former nursing assistant who was charged last month with raping an incapacitated woman at a long-term-care center was arrested Monday in the Philadelphia area, police said.
According to charging papers filed in King County Superior Court, Lamin Darboe, working this summer at Kindred Hospital in North Seattle, allegedly fondled and raped a 31-year-old woman who is paralyzed and can't speak as the result of a stroke.
The woman communicates by nodding her head to indicate "yes" or "no." She used an alphabet board to tell authorities about the rape, according to charging documents. She said Darboe told her not to report the assault. She has been transferred to another facility.
Rape victim tells her story: "He's always right there"
Jonathan Martin
03 Sep 2006 12:31 am
Last month, Julie Harmia pulled the battered, dog-eared book off her bookshelf and handed it to her adult son.
It was a true-crime account of the infamous South Hill rapist of Spokane. It was autographed by the author, Jack Olsen: "for Julie, a lovely lady, with many thanks."
Harmia's rape was on Page 200. Her 19-year-old son was dumbstruck. "Mom, you never told us ... " he said.
For most of her adult life, Harmia kept a wall around the evening of Oct. 23, 1980. She did not tell her son, daughter or even a therapist until recently. She has no photos from that time of her life.
But she still hears the precise diction in rapist Kevin Coe's voice. She feels the dry grass and thorns of the vacant lot where she was thrown down. She sees the stitching on the tan leather glove Coe shoved deep into her mouth to silence her.
Ex-school aide charged with rape
Parker Howell
01 Sep 2006 12:00 am
More than a year after he fathered a child with a teenage student, a former Spokane middle school teacher’s aide has been charged with child rape and sexual misconduct relating to their relationship.
[The] relationship became public in May 2005 when a birth announcement listed him as the father of the girl’s child. However, [the girl's] family never called police or officially complained to the school district.
The prosecutor’s office filed charges Wednesday after receiving a request from Spokane police, said Ed Hay, supervisor of the office’s special assault unit. He said police received a complaint this past May – the same month that [the girl] obtained a one-year restraining order against [him] prohibiting him from coming within two city blocks of her house, school or workplace.
Yakima sex offender charged with rape and voyeurism
Chris Bristol
31 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Prosecutors have filed rape and voyeurism charges against a convicted sex offender. An investigation into child pornography continues.
[He] was charged today with three counts of second-degree rape as well as an unrelated charge of voyeurism.
[He] is a high-risk Level 3 sex offender whose record includes convictions for third-degree rape, communicating with a minor for immoral purposes and indecent exposure.
Bystander's response helps police with arrest: Rape suspect caught in Kent
Noel S. Brady
31 Aug 2006 12:00 am
The quick action of a Kent man has led to the apprehension and filing of charges against a 24-year-old man accused of attacking and trying to rape a woman as she was strolling with her baby on the Soos Creek Trail.
Dale Leyde and his wife were walking southbound on a paved portion of the trail Friday afternoon, when they noticed an abandoned baby stroller. They didn't think much of it at first. Then they heard a woman's scream.
"She screamed like I had never heard a woman scream before," said Leyde, a 55-year-old airline pilot who has lived in Kent for more than 35 years. "I saw a man running down the trail, and I knew he had done something to her very bad."
DNA testing helps to keep justice blind
30 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Thank God for science.
Rationality has been the only thing missing from the latest sordid chapter in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case.
Generally, DNA testing is not needed to weed out these false confessors and publicity seekers. Police are good at recognizing them. But this is the JonBenet Ramsey case and everything has been handled badly from the start - one reason for non-prurient interest in the case. Unsolved murders fascinate many people; that's human.
What we hope is that more of us also become fascinated with the flip-side of the John Karrs out there - being concerned about freeing those who have been wrongly convicted of a crime. The Innocence Project, using post-conviction DNA testing, has exonerated more than 183 people since 1992, including 14 who were at one time sentenced to death. If these people could even get a crumb of the coverage, and interest, that the Ramsey case has produced, needed justice might prevail.
Nursing assistant is charged with rape
VANESSA HO
24 Aug 2006 12:00 am
A Seattle nursing assistant charged with the rape of a mute, paralyzed stroke victim had many red flags in his
history: He had been fired from two hospitals -- once for inappropriate behavior with female patients -- and been
charged twice with rape, according to King County prosecutors.
And yet, officials at the hospital where the latest suspected rape occurred said they had no idea about the man's
background.
On Wednesday, the state Department of Health announced that it had suspended the license of Lamin Darboe, a
39-year-old certified nursing assistant accused of raping the 31-year-old stroke victim in his care.
The woman, who suffered a stroke in May, has her cognitive abilities intact. She can communicate by shaking her head
yes and no, but is otherwise paralyzed.
Three days after she was admitted to Kindred on June 12, Darboe penetrated her with his fingers during a sponge
bath, according to charging documents. He once began raping her while she slept, and placed a towel over her face in
another rape, prosecutors say.
Soon after the woman was admitted, a friend visited her and asked if she was uncomfortable with Darboe, who had just
bathed the woman. The woman nodded her head vigorously and cried.
