From the News Journal (Also see this report)
Two former attendants at the Delaware Psychiatric Center were indicted Monday for multiple felonies, including rape, assault and patient abuse, stemming from two separate incidents that occurred at the trouble-plagued state hospital during the past two years.
Former attendant Woods Etherington Jr., 45, of Hockessin, was indicted on three counts of rape and six counts of patient abuse. According to documents filed with Delaware's Justice of the Peace Court, Etherington raped a patient three times in April 2006, in a toilet and a staff break room.
This isn't the first time Etherington has been accused of abusing a patient. In August 2000, he was arrested on charges of offensive touching and patient abuse, and pleaded guilty in 2001 to the offensive touching charge. The charges of patient abuse were dropped.
After those charges were settled, Etherington was brought back to work at DPC with the help of his union, whose president is Gregory Boston, himself a convicted felon. DPC administrators would not say why Etherington was allowed to return to work.
"We have no comment on employment decisions others made during a previous administration, nor on the length of time between our reporting of the substantiation of the allegation and today's decision to prosecute the individual," Jay Lynch, spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Services, said in a statement to The News Journal.
Lynch said Etherington was removed from direct patient care and suspended without pay in April 2006 following an internal investigation. A month later, he resigned from DPC.
The second attendant indicted Monday, Anthony R. Liggians Jr., 32, of Wilmington, faces two felonies: second-degree assault and one count of patient abuse.
The indictment stems from a July 2 incident involving Preston Hudson, a 44-year-old patient at the state hospital. According to documents filed with the court, Liggians punched Hudson in the face, after which he fell onto a bed in the admissions unit. Hudson's jaw was broken in three places, on both sides of his face.
"Anthony Liggians no longer works at DPC," Lynch said. "Woods Etherington has not been at DPC for over 15 months."
The News Journal was unable to locate Etherington or Liggians for this story.
Felons on staff
Last month, when the state hospital's troubles were documented by The News Journal, state House Majority Leader Richard C. Cathcart, R-Middletown, organized an investigative committee that will meet for the first time later this month to examine patient safety and operations at the center.
Among the new developments are statements by Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health administrators that no official "affiliation" exists between their institutions and the residency program at DPC, despite a letter from Health and Social Services Secretary Vincent P. Meconi touting the affiliations to Delaware lawmakers and the public.
Meconi's letter was sent three weeks before The News Journal exposed the felony drug conviction of Adam Scioli, a psychiatric resident hired by the state hospital in early July.
Boston's felony record stretches to the 1970s, when he was convicted of shooting two men in the face with a shotgun. Boston has not been convicted of a crime in Delaware since 1993, six years before DPC Director Susan Watson Robinson said he was "grandfathered" into employment despite his prior criminal history.
Gov. Ruth Ann Minner did not return calls or e-mails seeking comment for this story. In an interview last month, Minner said she did not believe DPC needed to be investigated.
Since that interview, a half-dozen federal and Delaware probes of the state hospital have been launched, focusing on patient abuse, staff intimidation and the hiring of felons to work with mentally ill patients. Reports of abuse, mistreatment and neglect increased at the hospital from 35 in 2001 to 119 last year.
"The vast majority of DPC employees do a good job providing patient care," Lynch said. "When one does not, it is deeply distressing and we take swift action to remove or correct that employee."
Rape charges
According to documents filed with the court, Delaware State Police Cpl. Michael Willey went to DPC on April 12, 2006, to investigate a complaint of a staff member having sex with a 23-year-old female patient. Willey interviewed the victim, who said she had "consensual sex" with Etherington on two days in April. Both incidents occurred between 9:30 and 10 p.m.
The next day, a state police investigator interviewed the victim's mother, who said her daughter was "not capable of making rational decisions" and unable to consent to sex.
According to court documents, Etherington admitted to investigators that he had been "making out" with the victim, and that the victim performed oral sex on him. Investigators interviewed the victim's psychiatrist, who told them the she was "severely mentally ill, suffering from schizophrenia and a personality disorder, and in his opinion was incapable of consenting to sexual conduct."
Investigators interviewed Etherington's co-workers in the Kent 2 unit of the New Castle-area state hospital. Court documents state that Etherington was warned that the victim was "sexually preoccupied, and staff should not be alone with her." Etherington, in another interview with police, said he knew the victim's history and that "she did not fully comprehend what she was doing at the time of the incident."
A broken jaw
When Preston Hudson told his sister he was attacked by two attendants, she called 911.
At first, DPC officials denied Hudson's claim, saying he tripped and hit his chin on a bed frame. "Mr. Hudson was having an episode, running around the room and tripped on the edge of the mat," Lynch said during initial interviews about the incident. "As he went down, his jaw or chin hit the bed."
After The News Journal reported the incident, Lynch said two employees "were removed from direct patient care."
DPC re-examined the case after the state police opened a criminal investigation. According to documents filed with the court, state police interviewed several staffers, including Liggians, to determine how Hudson, who is diagnosed with schizophrenia, was injured.
The troopers found an internal "Incident Report" regarding Hudson's injuries, signed by Liggians and another staffer. The DPC report classified the incident as a "Slip/Fall-Witnessed." The report stated that Hudson "tripped over the mat and hit his face on the iron bed post."
Liggians was interviewed several times and gave several versions of the night's events.
A female DPC employee told investigators she "witnessed Liggians punch Hudson in the face." She stated that at the time, Hudson was "drugged up, medicated, and not very stable on his feet," and that he was not acting in a "menacing fashion or in a manner which would require that level of force."
Hudson's sister, Doris Scott, welcomed news of the criminal indictment. "It means that justice has been served, and that you can't treat a human being like that," Scott said Monday. "No one wants to be treated like that. They want to feel safe in a hospital."
Two days after the assault, doctors wired Hudson's jaw together, and he was returned to the state mental hospital. He hasn't eaten solid food for more than a month.
Hudson's family will meet with his treatment team today. They hope he will be released from the state hospital.
"Delaware citizens living with severe and persistent mental illness must have protection from those who wish to do them harm," said Rita Marocco, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Delaware. " 'To do no harm' represents the most basic of expectations NAMI-DE families demand of professional caretakers," Marocco said. "Not only does it appear that the DPC administration failed to achieve this basic need for Mr. Hudson, but it seems likely that the administration of DPC took steps to cover up the assault on Mr. Hudson."
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