A woman is suing a Lafayette nursing home and two employees on behalf of her mother, a dementia patient who was allegedly physically, verbally and sexually assaulted.
Maison de Lafayette on Kaliste Saloom Road in Lafayette, along with Christal Howard, 34, of Franklin, and Dontrielle Harris, 33, of Lafayette Parish were sued in December by Dana Verdugo on behalf of her mother, Katherine Verdugo, a patient at the nursing home.
Dana Verdugo learned of the alleged abuse in November when a Lafayette Parish Sheriff's investigator contacted her about a video found on the phone of a murder victim who was allegedly the boyfriend of one of the suspects. The video, according to the lawsuit, showed her mother being abused by two women at the nursing home.
The lawsuit alleges the two identified as certified nursing assistants "verbally assaulted, physically assaulted and terrorized" the elder Verdugo, including raising her gown, "exposing her genitalia in a manner of sexual assault."
The nursing home did not properly screen the women before they were hired, the lawsuit alleges, because the women were not trained and not licensed CNAs.
Routine background checks would have revealed they "were not only unqualified to be employed as CNAs but posed a serious threat to nursing home residents," the lawsuit continues.
According to a report by another news organization, Howard, 34, was charged in March with simple assault, cruelty to the infirmed, simple battery of the infirmed and hate crimes.
Harris, 33, they reported, is wanted on one charge of cruelty to the infirmed and two counts of non-consensual disclosure of a private image.
Lafayette Parish court records show Harris was charged in 2016 with child desertion and resisting an officer. The last entry under that case is from April 2017 when she failed to appear in court and a bench warrant was issued for her arrest.
Harris was indicted in April 2023 on a charge of improper supervision of a minor by a parent, court records show. A warrant was issued for her arrest for failure to appear for arraignment in May 2023. She also had two charges of theft in Lafayette Parish, in 2009 and 2011.