A male nursing aide who raped an 83-year-old woman
suffering from Alzheimer’s disease was sentenced Thursday to eight years
in prison during an emotional hearing in Hennepin County District
Court.
Seven days before Christmas last year, George Sumo
Kpingbah, 77, was seen moving in a “back and forth, thrusting motion”
while standing at the edge of the elderly woman’s bed at Walker
Methodist Health Center in south Minneapolis, according to a state
investigation. Kpingbah pleaded guilty in September to third-degree
criminal sexual conduct.
In powerful courtroom testimony on Thursday, the
woman’s daughter spoke of her mother and her family’s trauma and urged
the judge to show no mercy.
“Now and for the rest of my life, when I think of
my mother at Christmastime, or when my mother passes and I reflect on
the final years of her life, I will have tattooed on my brain the
knee-buckling shock of getting that call … letting me know that my
mother had been raped,” Maya Fischer said.
Hennepin County District Judge Elizabeth Cutter
sentenced Kpingbah to a year more than prosecutors sought. She referred
to the rape as “extremely devastating” to the family and said it
warranted the maximum possible sentence in part because Kpingbah had
“violated a position of trust” at the nursing home.
“This [rape] affects everyone who has to place a loved one in a facility,” Cutter said.
On hearing the judge’s sentence, relatives of the
rape survivor grabbed one another in bear hugs and began crying. “All we
ever wanted was for justice to be served,” Fischer said.
Kpingbah clutched a small Bible during the hearing
and apologized to the court. “I would just say to the family … and to
everyone affected by my actions that I am sorry, I am sorry,” he said.
He vowed to take his Bible to prison. Members of his church occupied
nearly half the courtroom.
Urging the judge for leniency, Kpingbah’s attorney
said his client had fled violence in Liberia and had devoted much of his
life to ensuring that his three daughters migrated to America. “There
is no rational basis to explain [the rape],” said his court-appointed
attorney, Joseph Kaminsky. “It was an unspeakable act.”
Kpingbah also has agreed to an unusual settlement
in a separate lawsuit. In that case, Kpingbah has agreed to pay $15
million to the estate of the rape survivor if he is ever convicted again
of criminal sexual conduct in any other case, or is ever found liable
again for the abuse or neglect of a vulnerable adult.
Full Article & Source:
Aide Gets 8 Years for Rape of 83-Year-Old Resident at Minneapolis Nursing Home
2 comments:
I bet this sort of violence happens often in facilities but nobody catches it.
That poor woman. 8 years isn't enough. I suppose she was lucky there was any accountability at all.
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