Boy Convicted of Sexually Molesting 15-Y-O Girl in Hospital's ICU; Mother Claims Hospital Blames Her for the Incident
A distraught mother is suing the Highlands Regional Medical Center in Florida, and its parent company Health Management Associates Inc., for negligence after her 15-year-old daughter was sexually molested by a 16-year-old boy while she was a patient in the hospital's intensive care unit.
A WFLA report identifies the mother and daughter via aliases Michelle and Jenny, respectively, to protect their identities.
According to Michelle, Highlands Regional Medical Center allowed 16-year-old Jesse Maness, her daughter's on-and-off boyfriend with whom she had a sexual relationship, to visit Jenny against her orders on a night in July 2012.
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"I said under no circumstances is this person allowed in; he was trouble," said Michelle, who was also the chief nursing officer at the hospital at the time of the incident. Hospital policy also dictates that only immediate family be allowed to visit ICU patients.
Michelle explained that Jenny was being treated for a serious infection at the time, and that fateful night in 2012 was the only night she left her sick daughter alone in the hospital and it turned out to be the same night that Maness showed up.
WFLA News Channel 8Michelle was told by a nurse the next morning that Maness had visited her daughter and discovered that he had sex with her while she was under the influence of multiple pain killers and sedatives, including morphine and percocet. Maness was caught in Jenny's bed twice.
"You know, why did they let him in? Why did they let him in and close the door? Why did they find him in the bed and yet let it happen again? How long was he allowed in there?" asked Michelle.
Maness confessed to the Highlands County Sheriff's Office that he had sex with Jenny in the ICU. Prosecutors charged him as a juvenile with lewd and lascivious behavior with a minor and molestation of a child, which are both felonies, because as a 15-year-old, Jenny could not legally consent to sex even if she allowed it to happen.
He was confirmed an adjudicated delinquent by the prosecutor's office, which said in a letter that he was "placed on probation, ordered to complete 20 hours of community service, have no contact with the victim, write a letter of apology to the victim, and attend school full time with no unexcused absences or referrals. Sex offender treatment was also ordered," according to WFLA.
Despite the confession, however, the hospital told Michelle in a letter, seven months after Maness confessed to having sex with her daughter in the ICU, that they did an investigation and: "Did not identify any objective evidence to support allegations of abuse during your daughter's hospitalization."
