Ex-patient OK'd to testify in Arkansas hospital worker's sex assault trial

A State Hospital caretaker once forced her to strip naked, get down on her hands and knees and act like a dog for his sexual gratification, a former patient at the mental institution testified on Monday.

James Leon Davis, 44, was never charged over the woman's allegations, but Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims ruled Monday that the 35-year-old North Little Rock woman with schizophrenia could testify against the North Little Rock man at his trial over allegations he sexually assaulted another patient last year.

Davis is charged with third-degree sexual assault, which makes any sexual contact between state caretakers and their patients illegal. The law also bars sexual contact between prison guards and inmates.

Davis was caught in the act with a 27-year-old patient by a nurse on March 6, 2017, deputy prosecutor Jacob DeYoung told the judge. He said the older woman's testimony was necessary to show how Davis targeted mentally ill women.

"He has picked these vulnerable women who cannot resist," he told the judge.

Defense attorney Lott Rolfe opposed allowing her to testify, arguing that her accusations were not credible and noting that she never went to authorities during the six-month period in 2015 that she claims Davis was molesting her.

Investigators did not interview her until September, Rolfe said. She has also made "numerous" false accusations against other hospital workers, he told the judge.

Sims said he'd allow the woman to testify and leave the decision about her credibility and reliability up to jurors at Davis' March 28 trial. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

She testified that Davis would "demand" that she "do certain things or I would go back to jail." She said the dog incident occurred in a hospital restroom. Davis would promise her extra snacks if she submitted to his requests, the woman said, telling the judge how her medication had caused her to crave carbohydrates.

He also promised her extra phone time, which she said was important to her because the phone was the only way she could listen to her choice of music while in the hospital.

Davis regularly required her to submit to his demands that she sexually gratify him, sometimes by having her touch his privates, sometimes by rubbing himself on her and sometimes through kissing, the woman said.

When she didn't do what Davis told her, her medication would be significantly increased and she'd be subjected to more intensive monitoring by the hospital staff, the woman said. Davis was not concerned when she threatened to tell authorities, she told the judge. The woman said she made "almost 100" reports to hospital authorities about what was going on, but no one did anything.

"He said he didn't care and it was just going to come back on me," she said. "I probably made almost 100 statements around the time ... but I think they covered it up."

Questioned about "love letters" she wrote to Davis, the woman said she wrote them because Davis demanded them, telling the judge that the letters were "basically a paraphrase" of author Danielle Steel's novel A Perfect Stranger. She testified she was reading a lot of Steel's books at the time.

"I just told him what he wanted to hear," she said.

She was committed to the State Hospital after attacking her sleeping mother in July 2014, beating the woman and stabbing her in the head and face with a butcher knife. She was gone when police arrived. When officers finally tracked her down more than three weeks later, they found her in another mental institution being treated for schizophrenia.

The 27-year-old woman whom Davis is accused of assaulting did not testify Monday. Court records show she suffered brain damage when she was hit by a car at age 11.

The impact fractured her skull and put her into a coma for three months. She also had a stroke while she was hospitalized. Her injuries inflicted intellectual disabilities plus damaged her impulse control, leaving her with a tendency toward occasional explosive outbursts of anger.

She has been hospitalized at least 12 times between 2006 and 2012 for aggressive and violent behavior, hallucinations and suicidal thoughts.

She was committed to the State Hospital after a Nov. 9, 2012, incident at North Metro Medical Center after biting a nurse. She had been taken to the hospital emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation after threatening to kill herself. The nurse, Cynthia Lambertus, had been trying to calm the woman down when she was attacked. The woman pulled her down onto the hospital bed, punching her and biting her on the right upper arm, court filings show.

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Metro on 03/08/2018

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