Nurse Aide Indicted For Raping Nursing Home Resident

Press Release, Aug 22, 2006

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced today that an Oneida County Grand Jury has indicted a nurse aide, who was formerly employed at the Rome Memorial Hospital Residential Health Care Facility, for forcibly raping a 90-year-old female resident of the nursing home who suffers from dementia.

William Morrison, 45, of Utica, was charged with Rape in the First Degree, Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, Endangering the Welfare of a Vulnerable Elderly Person in the Second Degree, and Wilful Violation of Health Laws. The maximum penalty that Morrison could receive for these charges is 25 years.

Morrison was arrested on June 13, 2006. Today he was arraigned before the Honorable Michael Dwyer in Oneida County Court and is being held in the Oneida County Jail on $50,000 cash or bond. His next scheduled court appearance will be on August 21, at 9:30 a.m. in County Court.

Assistant Attorney General Ralph D. Tortora, III, Director of the Syracuse Regional Office of Attorney General Spitzer’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, is prosecuting the case.

The charges against Morrison are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.