$2.5 million Settlement for Rape of Mentally Ill Woman
9/19/2007
Last week a $2.5 million settlement was reached in the 2004 rape incident of a mentally ill woman. At the time of the rape, the woman was a patient at Eastern State Hospital.
$1.5 million of that settlement will go towards the victim's future care, an amount declared "reasonable" by Jerry Cartwright, the assistant attorney general who represented the state, considering the amount of care the woman requires.
The remaining $1 million will be split between her two attorneys.
Have you or someone you know been the victim of an assault or rape? If so, consider contacting an attorney today.
The mentally-ill woman was raped by Guy M. Johnston, a former employee of Eastern State Hospital. Johnston has since been convicted of the 2004 rape and is currently in prison. Jim Stevenson, a spokesperson from the Department of Social and Health Services, the agency that runs the Eastern State Hospital, said "It was a regrettable incident...We don't want it to happen again, and we certainly hope we'll be able to prevent it from happening again." However, when asked, Stevenson declined to say whether any of the hospital's policies had been changed or any new policies implemented as a result of the incident in question.
