Saturday, October 22, 2022

It doesn't work

A Valentine’s Day card in February, 2017, bears the following hand-written message to an involuntary mental patient, from a Mental Health Tech named Erica, at Chicago-Read Mental Health Center: 

“Happy Valentine’s Day… The best gift I could give you is my words… Getting to know and learn you these past couple of months has been quite the experience. I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me no matter how small. You’ve made quite an impact in such a short time whether you know it or not. Regardless of whether we work out later on in life or not you will always hold a special place in my heart. You brought me back from one of the darkest times in my life. I couldn’t tell you what makes me happy or who I was. I had gotten caught up in saying I wanted to do so many things, and had lost my motivation for life. Meeting you changed a lot for me, there was something about you that inspired me to want to do more in life and just help me find myself and for that I’ll forever be grateful. I don’t know what lies in the future, but one thing I do know is I can see you in it.”

Doesn't it seem likely that this Valentines Day card, with this message, evidenced a romantic relationship? Approximately five years later, Erica was interviewed by the Illinois State Police Division of Internal Investigations. She admitted to them, after desperately, awkwardly, trying to deny it for two and a half excruciating hours, that she had carried on a sexual relationship with the patient to whom she gave the Valentine's Day card.

Erica never did admit that she smuggled in the burner phone the patient used to collect the naked pictures she sent to him. She said, well, maybe the patient got those pictures which had already been on her cell phone, and sent them to himself, she didn't know how he got them. The cops clearly didn't buy it.

In fact, the result of the investigation was a recommendation to the Cook County State's Attorney that Erica should be prosecuted for custodial sexual abuse. The State's Attorney declined, supposedly just because of a statute of limitations issue.

Here's one thing though: there is no statute of limitations on the investigation by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of allegations of custodial sexual abuse. A caller from OIG's Springfield office confirmed that they had received reports about Erica and this patient. So they may still be investigating the allegations, or maybe the allegations were classified as unfounded or unsubstantiated. No doubt OIG has documentary evidence of this. The public should probably ask who OIG interviewed and what evidence they looked at.

Or, maybe they never did investigate the reports they got, or maybe they never got reports. Maybe lots of other staff covered up for Erica, for years, because she speaks fluent Spanish and is also fluent in sign language, so she is a uniquely valuable, trilingual mental health tech. She still works at Chicago Read Mental Health Center now. As soon as the State's Attorney elected (on a legal technicality) not to prosecute, despite the findings of the police investigation, she was brought right back into her old job, where she is once again in close contact with patients.

There is, however, no question that there was a love affair between this staff at Chicago Read Mental Health Center and a patient who was not able to consent. Anyone who listens to the recorded police interview will be quite sure of that. Anyone who sees the Valentine's Day card will know it.

Love affairs are nice. They can have quite an impact in such a short time, as Erica wrote, and bring people back from the darkest of times. 

But they are not allowed between staff and patients in state nuthouses in Illinois. There are good reasons for this, and there is a whole lot of very strict policy, law, and requirements for timely OIG reports, all intended to prevent love affairs between staff and patients in state nuthouses in Illinois.

The question becomes, why doesn't it work?

No comments:

Post a Comment