XPost: alt.politics.usa, alt.politics.democrats.d, alt.rush-limbaugh   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: more.perversion@glaad.org   
      
   Some of the victims can't speak. They rely on walkers and   
   wheelchairs to leave their beds. They have been robbed of their   
   memories. They come to nursing homes to be cared for.   
      
   Instead, they are sexually assaulted.   
      
   The unthinkable is happening at facilities throughout the   
   country: Vulnerable seniors are being raped and sexually abused   
   by the very people paid to care for them.   
      
   It's impossible to know just how many victims are out there. But   
   through an exclusive analysis of state and federal data and   
   interviews with experts, regulators and the families of victims,   
   CNN has found that this little-discussed issue is more   
   widespread than anyone would imagine.   
      
   Even more disturbing: In many cases, nursing homes and the   
   government officials who oversee them are doing little -- or   
   nothing -- to stop it.   
      
   Sometimes pure -- and even willful -- negligence is at work. In   
   other instances, nursing home employees and administrators are   
   hamstrung in their efforts to protect victims who can't remember   
   exactly what happened to them or even identify their   
   perpetrators.   
      
   In cases reviewed by CNN, victims and their families were failed   
   at every stage. Nursing homes were slow to investigate and   
   report allegations because of a reluctance to believe the   
   accusations -- or a desire to hide them. Police viewed the   
   claims as unlikely at the outset, dismissing potential victims   
   because of failing memories or jumbled allegations. And because   
   of the high bar set for substantiating abuse, state regulators   
   failed to flag patterns of repeated allegations against a single   
   caregiver.   
      
   It's these systemic failures that make it especially hard for   
   victims to get justice -- and even easier for perpetrators to   
   get away with their crimes.   
      
   "At 83 years old, unable to speak, unable to fight back, she was   
   even more vulnerable than she was as a little girl fleeing her   
   homeland. In fact, she was as vulnerable as an infant when she   
   was raped. The dignity which she always displayed during her   
   life, which was already being assaulted so unrelentingly by   
   Alzheimer's disease, was dealt a final devastating blow by this   
   man. The horrific irony is not lost upon me ... that the very   
   thing she feared most as a young girl fleeing her homeland   
   happened to her in the final, most vulnerable days of her life."   
      
   Maya Fischer made this statement in court at the 2015 sentencing   
   of a nursing assistant convicted of raping her mother. Choking   
   back tears, Fischer detailed her mother's story -- recounting   
   how she had fled Indonesia as a youth with her family to escape   
   the rape and killing of young girls by Japanese soldiers, only   
   to fall victim decades later to a man whose job was to care for   
   her.   
      
   A fellow caregiver saw male nursing assistant George Kpingbah in   
   83-year-old Sonja Fischer's room at 4:30 a.m. on December 18,   
   2014, at the Walker Methodist Health Center in Minneapolis. A   
   bare leg was on each side of his hips, and her adult diaper lay   
   open on the bed. When the witness noticed the 76-year-old aide   
   thrusting back and forth, she said she knew a sexual assault was   
   occurring.   
      
   Kpingbah ultimately pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal   
   sexual conduct with a mentally impaired or helpless victim and   
   was sentenced to eight years in prison. In an emotional   
   statement directed at Kpingbah during sentencing, the judge told   
   him he had done more than ravage the lives of his victim and her   
   family. He had betrayed the public trust granted to caregivers   
   who have such intimate access to the sick and elderly.   
      
   "You violated (a) position of authority, a position of trust,"   
   Judge Elizabeth Cutter said at the sentencing hearing. "The   
   ramifications of what you did are so far-reaching. ... It also   
   affected everyone in that facility. Everyone who stays in that   
   facility. Everyone who works at that facility. It affects   
   everyone who has to place a loved one in a facility."   
      
   Kpingbah apologized at the hearing and said he planned to take   
   his Bible with him to prison. His attorney asked for leniency.   
   Kpingbah had endured his own personal struggles as a refugee,   
   the attorney said, fleeing Liberia after many of his family   
   members were killed. Kpingbah's one "unspeakable act," he told   
   the judge, was completely out of character.   
      
   Yet in court documents uncovered by CNN, prosecutors revealed it   
   wasn't the first time Kpingbah had been investigated over sexual   
   assault allegations. Personnel records obtained by prosecutors   
   during the investigation and reviewed by CNN show Kpingbah was   
   suspended three times as Walker Methodist officials investigated   
   repeated accusations of sexual abuse at the facility, including   
   at least two where he was the main suspect.   
      
   The earliest complaint was in 2008, when police investigated   
   allegations he had engaged in sexual intercourse with a 65-year-   
   old who suffered from multiple sclerosis. In another case, an 83-   
   year-old blind and deaf woman who lived on the same wing as   
   Fischer's mother said she was raped multiple times -- always at   
   midnight. Police investigated her report just seven months   
   before Fischer's mother was assaulted. While the woman could not   
   identify her assailant, Kpingbah was suspended by the facility   
   along with several other male staffers who were on duty during   
   the nights of the alleged assaults.   
      
   PREDATORS FIND ELDERLY PATIENTS TO BE EASY PREY.   
   None of these allegations were found to be substantiated by the   
   facility or the state. For years, Walker Methodist kept Kpingbah   
   working on the overnight shift. Until that early morning in   
   December 2014, when someone caught him in the act.   
      
   In that instance, the Minnesota Department of Health found that   
   the facility acted immediately to ensure the resident's safety   
   and promptly removed Kpingbah. The state also noted that the   
   facility had previously provided Kpingbah with required abuse   
   training. As a result, the facility was not cited for any   
   wrongdoing; only Kpingbah was held accountable for the assault.   
      
   Maya Fischer had no way of knowing about the previous   
   allegations against Kpingbah uncovered by CNN. But she sued   
   Kpingbah, who agreed to an unusual arrangement in which he is on   
   the hook for a massive $15 million judgment only if he abuses   
   again.   
      
   Walker Methodist refused to comment on the previous allegations   
   against Kpingbah, who worked at the facility for nearly eight   
   years, but said in a statement that it fully cooperated with   
   authorities and that "the care and well-being of all of our   
   residents and patients is our primary focus."   
      
   CNN reached out to family members of other residents who earlier   
   reported they were sexually assaulted at Walker Methodist during   
   the time Kpingbah worked there (though he was not deemed a   
   suspect in every case). They said the officials there were quick   
   to dismiss the residents' claims as hallucinations or fantasies.   
      
   What should we investigate next? Email us.   
      
   "Walker Methodist certainly failed to handle this appropriately   
      
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