Minnesota nursing home defends rapist: 89-year-old victim was a ‘flirt’

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Raw Story

Minnesota nursing home defends rapist: 89-year-old victim was a ‘flirt’
By David Edwards
Sunday, February 23, 2014 9:49 EST

An elderly woman in Minnesota is seeking punitive damages against a nursing home that placed her in a mental health facility and protected her attacker after she was raped.

According to court documents obtained by the Star Tribune, Edgewood Vista senior living facility forced the 89-year-old woman to spend 72 hours in the mental health unit of St. Luke’s Hospital near Duluth after she reported that 30-year-old Andrew Scott Merzwski had raped her in her bed at the senior home.

The woman said that Merzwski had entered her room as she preparing for bed. After she invited him to watch a movie, he started taking off his clothes.

“It’s not right, this wouldn’t be right,” the woman reportedly told Merzwski, pointing to a photo of her husband.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/23/minnesota-nursing-home-defends-rapist-89-year-old-victim-was-a-flirt/

[itsrobert]

1. Regardless, the health care worker should maintain a professional relationship

with people entrusted to his/her care.

[WhiteTara]

4. well she is old and will soon be dead, so who cares?

What a sad world we live in.

[valerief]

2. Great Fundie Jesus, of course, it's her fault. She's a woman, after all!

[blkmusclmachine]

14. Damn sluts! They're everywhere, I tell ya! Everywhere I go...

[truthisfreedom]

3. No excuse, ever.

Rape is rape.

[DonCoquixote]

5. and watch the nursing home

summon forth the worst that money can buy, from Lawyers to whatever else they can get away with.

Note to the conservatives, the same SOB CEOS you worship will likely never need to be in a nursing home, but you might, especially after the Billionaires start eating the upper middle class. There are many people in these homes who saved, worked, did the right things, and still get shafted because America decided that it was too afraid to punish the money makers.

[Scairp]

6. WTF is wrong with people

A forcible rape of an elderly woman and she is punished? Fucking unbelievable. Someone needs to call Senator Franken about this. Maybe he can inquire and find out if an investigation into this facility and this crime is warranted. I certainly think it is.

[Brigid]

7. Marilyn Moore needs to lose her job, maybe even her license

I'm guessing her position is equivalent to Director of Nursing here in IN. Her attitude is appalling.

[jsr]

19. +1

[Scootaloo]

8. Oh my lord. There's no words, only gutteral noises of rage.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

9. The director of the place said the 89-year old woman was a "flirt"??????

This is out of control insane. What kind of people are running these places, and what sort of trash are they hiring??

[Blue_Tires]

23. Sometimes the motivation to save your job and/or cover your ass

leads you to say some truly WTF? things....

I remember years ago some diocese deep in a pedophile scandal actually said the boys abused were flirts, or something similar...

[Sarah Ibarruri]

24. True. And not only is it wrong, but it also sounds like the biggest d***d nonsense, doesn't it?

An elderly, interned lady "flirting?" omg

[Brigid]

10. Here in IN . . .

A few weeks of training and a clean criminal record, and you're good to go as a CNA.

[udbcrzy2]

17. Parolees can become CNA's and LPN or RN

I've noticed that our local nursing home hires parolees. These are people you can actually lookup online and see their prison mugshot. Their crimes are drug related or drinking or not paying their child support.

I think that is weird that the nursing homes are allowed to hire such individuals. Can you imagine leaving your mother or grandmother in the care of a meth cook?

[Brigid]

18. What state are you in?

That is not allowed here.

[7962]

11. With the publicity this will get, I hope something changes here. nt

[blue neen]

12. That's beyond sick.

Ms. Moore should be in jail for abuse.

[azurnoir]

13. WTF I know of a similar case that happened in Minneapolis about 25 years ago

the male CNA went to prison as should this period but there was a difference while both victims were White the male CNA in the case I mentioned was Black, he was arrested on the spot and that is exactly what should have happened here- that said exactly why is this guy being defended by the nursing home anyway?

[proudretiredvet]

15. How can anyone rationalize this away.

A crime was committed, period.

[Prophet 451]

16. Maybe she was a flirt

I don't know, perhaps she did flirt with the guy but you know what? It doesn't matter because flirting isn't consent.

[Ken Burch]

20. I'd just looove to hear Merzwski explain how much of a "flirt" this woman was...

...to his new friends at the state prison. I'm guessing granny-rapers aren't much more popular their than kiddy-rapers.

[Beacool]

21. Yeah, this sounds like the woman consented to have sex with Merzwski.

About that same time, the nursing home transferred the woman to a psychiatric ward at St. Luke’s Hospital for nearly three days.

“The room she was in was dark and cold … and they locked her in at night and all she had was a blanket,” nurse examiner Theresa Flesvig said in the court documents.

When Flesvig was finally able to examine the victim, she found the “biggest tear” as a result of rape that she had ever seen in her career.

[AnneD]

22. I have worked in Nursing Homes on and off for years...

both as an aid and as a Nurse. I always kept an eye out for rape. We would have some young women that would be comatose. Usually we would have the female aids take care of the females and especially our comatose ones. There was a case of a comatose female that was impregnated and gave birth. That story always stuck with me. More often than not we had confused residents having sex (our Alzheimer's patients) every now and again, but we tried to run interference on that. But sex is as much a drive as hunger, we just didn't encourage it if one of the parties were too confused to consent.

We tried to screen our orderlies very carefully. I know that seems sexist but we were more concerned with the orderlies than female aids. We took any claim seriously and the resident was examined at once.