In 2021, a judge in Arizona gave a former nurse, Nathan Sutherland, 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman at a long-term care facility, where the woman later gave birth; she was incapacitated, and couldn’t defend herself. Nathan Sutherland got the most punishment he could have gotten under the deal he made when he admitted to sexual assault.
He was also put on probation for life after being found guilty of sexually abusing a vulnerable adult.
Superior Court Judge Margaret LaBianca said, “It’s hard to think of an adult who was more vulnerable than the victim in this case.” She also said that Sutherland used the victim’s trust in him as a caregiver to sexually abuse her.
In December 2018, an employee at the Hacienda Healthcare facility in Phoenix was changing the clothes of the victim, who was 29 at the time, and saw that the patient was about to give birth. The woman’s coworkers told the police that they didn’t know she was pregnant.
Police said that Sutherland’s DNA matched a sample taken from the woman’s son. The boy’s guardian is the mother of the victim.
Sutherland told the judge that he had problems in his life because he had been given up for adoption when he was a child. The judge then gave Sutherland his prison sentence.
“I’m sorry to the person who was hurt,” Sutherland said. “No matter what was going on in my personal life or what demons I was fighting, you didn’t deserve to be hurt. I shouldn’t have made you go through that.”
The unexpected birth caused state agencies to look into it, raised safety concerns for patients who are severely disabled or unable to move, and caused Hacienda’s CEO and one of the victim’s doctors to quit.
It led to a lawsuit from the victim’s parents, who said that Sutherland took care of their daughter hundreds of times from 2012 to 2018, even though the state had said that only women would care for her.
The state contracts with companies like Hacienda to help people with developmental disabilities. An expert who works for her family said that many of Sutherland’s interactions with the patient took place at night, when there were fewer staff and visitors.
The family’s lawyers said that Hacienda missed signs that the woman was pregnant. They said that in the months before the baby was born, she gained weight, had a distended abdomen, and didn’t have her period. They said that the woman, who has a feeding tube and whose food intake was cut because she gained weight during her pregnancy, gave birth to a boy while she was severely dehydrated and didn’t have any painkillers.
The victim lived at Hacienda for 26 years. Her health problems are caused by a brain disorder that makes it hard for her to move, think, and see. She also lost the ability to use any of her limbs.
Sutherland was a licensed practical nurse at Hacienda. After he was arrested, he was fired, and he has since given up his license to practice nursing.
When Sutherland was arrested in 2019, the families of other patients were shocked.
“He had a lot of love and care for others.” “Or he made it look like that. I really did trust him,” Angela Gomez said.
She said that even in her “wildest dreams,” she would have never thought that Sutherland would be the person the police were looking for.
“I thought other people were in on it, but I was wrong, and he fooled everyone,” Gomez said.
The woman who lived at Hacienda Healthcare for 26 years and was cared for by a doctor was given a $15 million settlement from the judge. The doctor’s insurance company says it doesn’t have to pay that amount.
Perry Petrilli, the current CEO of Hacienda Healthcare, said in a statement that employees helped the police and have been thinking about the victim and her family. “We are relieved that he will never hurt another innocent person again,” he said.
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