Nursing Home Aide Convicted For Raping 90-Year-Old Resident

oag.state.ny.us, Mar 27, 2007

Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that William Morrison, a former aide at the Rome Memorial Hospital Residential Health Care Facility, was found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting a 90-year-old resident of the nursing home.

A jury convicted Mr. Morrison, 46, of Utica, of three felonies after a five-day trial conducted before Judge Michael L. Dwyer in Oneida County Court.  Morrison was found guilty of Rape in the First Degree, a class B felony, Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, a class D felony, and Endangering the Welfare of a Vulnerable Elderly Person, a class E felony.

Mr. Morrison had been employed by Rome Memorial Hospital, in Rome, New York, for several months before he transferred to hospital’s affiliated 80-bed nursing home.  This crime was committed approximately two weeks after that transfer.

When Mr. Morrison began to work at the nursing home, the home sought to perform a criminal background check, but that process had not been completed before Mr. Morrison raped the elderly resident.  Such a background check would have revealed that Mr. Morrison had previously been convicted of one felony drug offense in 1992 and several misdemeanors in the 1990s.  His last conviction was for a misdemeanor drug offense in 1999. Read more at oag.state.ny.us