See update at the end of this post on Alejandro Arias being found guilty.
Between April 1 and July 18, 2008, male nurse's assistant Alejandro Arias entered the care center rooms of two women, ages 50 and 60, under the pretense of performing legitimate medical procedures.
But, according to prosecutors, his non-AMA approved care included fingering the women, rubbing their breasts and vaginal areas and trying to get them to give him handy J's.
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For this break in medical protocol, Arias could get 51 years in state prison and lifetime registration as a sex offender if a conviction results from the Cypress 39-year-old's trial beginning this morning in Santa Ana.
Arias worked as a certified nursing assistant and assistant physical therapist at
Anaheim Terrace Care Center, where the alleged victims who did not know one another were in his care for temporary in-patient
rehabilitation therapy. Both reported the abuse after they checked out.
The women could not resist the assaults because of the medication they were on and/or the nature of ailments or injuries that put them in the care of the medical facility, according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's office.
Arias is
charged with five felony counts of forcible lewd acts upon a dependent
person by a caretaker, five felony counts of sexual battery on an
institutionalized person, three felony counts of lewd acts upon a
dependent person by a caretaker, one felony count of sexual penetration
by foreign object by force, and one felony count of attempted sexual
battery.
If the nurse's assistant is virtually painted with the scarlet sex offender letter, he will be barred from county parks and recreational areas, as well as those in Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Laguna Hills,
Lake Forest, La Habra, Los Alamitos, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa
Margarita, Santa Ana, Seal Beach, Westminster and Yorba Linda, which have all enacted sex offender safety zones. Irvine's applies to sex offenders who targeted children.
UPDATE, JULY 30, 5:38 P.M.: An Orange County Superior Court jury deliberated about five hours July 20 before finding nurse assistant Alejandro Arias guilty of all the counts against him for molesting two women under his care in 2008.
Judge James Stotler could sentence the Cypress 39-year-old to 51 years in state prison at a scheduled Sept. 7 hearing.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.