http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/p...ton-assisted-living-abuse-20180713-story.html
A caretaker at an assisted living facility put duct tape over the mouth, hands and feet of a 67-year-old dementia patient to silence and restrain her at a Boynton Beach assisted-living facility, police say.
Police on Thursday arrested Lashron Williams, 52, and Phygelle Brudent, 44, both of West Palm Beach.
They were in a Palm Beach County jail on Friday, each facing charges of false imprisonment and elderly abuse.
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The tape was applied to the patient’s mouth to prevent her from screaming, and it was removed to give her sleeping pills, according to reports.
Brudent admitted to investigators that she took the patient to another patient’s room, tied her waist to a chair with a cloth pajama pant and used duct tape to bind her hands and feet against the chair, an arrest report said.
At one point the chair was tilted back against a bed, making it “very unsafe” for the patient, police said.
Brudent told police she was frustrated because the patient could not remain quiet and she had other patients to care for, according to reports.
Williams told police she saw the patient with duct tape around her mouth, and said she removed it to give the woman sleeping pills. She also told police she removed a small portion of the tape that bound the woman’s body.
She told investigators that she discussed with Brudent that tying the patient to a chair was wrong, but didn’t report the incident, her arrest report said.
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The incident had been reported to the Florida Department of Children & Families. An arresting officer saw evidence of the illegal restraining of the patient, but that evidence was not described in police reports.
Brudent and Williams are accused of inflicting physical and psychological injury upon the patient, who was “not alert to time, place and the year,” police said.
A third employee of the facility was being investigated as a possible suspect in the continuing investigation, Boynton Beach Police spokeswoman Stephanie Slater said.
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