A nurse from Arizona, United States, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually abusing a disabled woman in long-term care.
The woman became pregnant and later gave birth, they report local media.
Nathan Sutherland received the maximum sentence established for the sexual assault charge. He was also given supervised probation for life, as a sentence for abuse against a vulnerable adult, derived from his treatment of the woman.
The victim’s pregnancy was discovered in December 2018, when an employee of the Hacienda Healthcare center in Phoenix was changing the clothes of the patient, who was 29 years old at the time, and realized that she was in the process of giving light. The employees alerted the police and claimed to be unaware that she was pregnant.
Later, the authorities declared that the nurse’s DNA matched a sample taken from the woman’s son.
The victim, lived in the nursing home for 26 years, suffers medical conditions that derive from a brain disorder that, in addition to vision loss, caused cognitive and motor deficits, for which he does not have functional use of his limbs.
“He apologized”
The man, before the sentence was imposed, told the court about the problems he has had in life because he was given up for adoption as a child.
He also apologized to the victim and his family and said he understood that the situation is not fair for the child, who will be under the care of the patient’s mother.
“To the victim, I’m sorry,” Sutherland said. “You didn’t deserve to be hurt, regardless of what was happening in my personal life and the demons I was fighting. I had no right to put you through that, “he added.
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