Disabled Teen Was Raped at Hospital, Mother Says

By Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Montgomery County police are investigating whether a mentally disabled 18-year-old Germantown woman was raped by a patient at a psychiatric hospital in Rockville last week after being involuntarily hospitalized.

The woman, who has the cognitive ability of a 10-year-old, told her mother that two patients at Potomac Ridge Behavioral Health Center took her into their room late Thursday and had intercourse with her, the mother said in an interview.

The staff members at Potomac Ridge who were assigned to supervise the teenager have been placed on paid leave pending the outcome of the police investigation and an inquiry by the hospital, a hospital official said yesterday.

It is the second time this year that men have been accused of sexually abusing the teenager while she was under the supervision of adults aware of her disability.

A man assigned to drive her home from school had sex with her in his van in March, court records say. He was charged with sexual abuse of a minor -- she was 17 at the time -- and was released on bond awaiting trial. A Montgomery judge forfeited his bond after the man failed to appear at a court hearing last month. He is at large.

The Washington Post generally does not identify victims of sexual abuse. The mother, 45, described her daughter's mental and behavioral problems as serious and showed a reporter a file with her daughter's school and medical records.

The mother provided the following account of events. Some could not be corroborated because the police investigation is continuing and medical officials are barred from disclosing patient information.

The teenager, who suffers from Pfeiffer syndrome -- a rare genetic disorder characterized by abnormalities of the head and other parts of the body -- as well as other severe mental and behavioral problems, was taken to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital on Thursday morning after she became agitated and violent at Mark Twain School in Rockville. County residents are forcibly hospitalized when they are deemed a threat to themselves or others.

After a preliminary evaluation at Shady Grove, she was taken to nearby Potomac Ridge, one of two facilities in the county where psychiatric patients who have been forcibly hospitalized are taken for short-term stabilization. Her mother says she visited her daughter that night and grew concerned about the demeanor of other patients in the unit, which houses patients of both sexes. She said she was assured by hospital officials that the teenager would be closely supervised.

The next morning, when the mother went to visit her, she noticed small bruises on the teenager's neck, which she photographed and showed to a reporter. When she asked her daughter about the marks, the teenager said two male patients entered her room at night, escorted her to theirs and had sex with her.

"She didn't put up any resistance," the mother said in Spanish. "For her, everyone is good."

The mother said she called police from the hospital. She said detectives interviewed the teenager and took her back to Shady Grove, where the same nurse who saw her in the spring evaluated her for signs of sexual assault.

The mother said hospital and police officials have shared few details about the case with her. She said a detective told her that her daughter had sex with the men but that police were trying to determine whether it had been consensual.

Police spokeswoman Lucille Baur said the investigation is at an early stage. No charges had been filed yesterday. In a news release about the case, police mentioned only one suspect, whom they described as a 23-year-old patient.

"We're concerned about these allegations," Potomac Ridge Vice President Pat Petralia said yesterday. "We have begun our own internal review here to help us identify any internal deficiencies."

The woman was released from Potomac Ridge yesterday. After arriving home, the woman's parents said, they found a handwritten, sexually explicit note in the pocket of one of the shirts the teenager wore at the hospital.

In the misspelled and largely unintelligible note, the writer expresses a desire to have sex with a woman described as "spanish look long hair." The family is originally from Bolivia, and the teenager has long hair.

"What placement are you going to," the note says. "When the white man leave again want you in the shower room."

The mother said she hadn't shown the note to police because they hadn't interviewed her at length.

Lossou Mawuena Wallace, 36, of Damascus, the van driver charged in the March case, had a $40,000 bond forfeited after he failed to appear at a hearing Oct. 19, court records show.

In that case, police say the man had intercourse with the teenager in the back of a van owned by a company that transports elderly and disabled people. The man admitted touching her sexually but denied having intercourse, according to police charging documents. According to the documents, the man told her that "if he didn't tell her mother what happened, he would bring her a gift tomorrow."