Inclusion Daily Express -- Day Program Worker Sentenced To 90 Days For Video-Recorded Assault

Inclusion Daily Express Logo

International Disability Rights News Service
Click here for today's headlines & home page

Keeping advocates informed, inspired and connected since 1999.
Click here for daily or weekly delivery . . . OR
Try Inclusion Daily Express for ten days FREE . . .

Day Program Worker Sentenced To 90 Days For Video-Recorded Assault
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
March 12, 2008

WESTMINSTER, CALIFORNIA--A former worker of an Anaheim day program was sentenced Monday to 90 days in jail after pleading guilty in the video-recorded beating of a man with intellectual disabilities.

Patrick Solis, 23, pleaded guilty to one felony count of false imprisonment of a dependent adult and one misdemeanor battery count. He entered his guilty plea just before his jury trial was to start. He could have faced up to eight years in prison.

Officers arrested Solis on January 25 of last year, believing that he is seen in cell-phone videos repeatedly smacking a 38-year-old man in March 2006, and slapping a 30-year-old man the following month in a restroom at the Jossen Vocational Academy -- while people in the background laugh and applaud. The victims were identified as participants of the day program.

Solis' former coworker, 25-year-old Michael Douglas Rama, admitted recording the assaults on his cell phone and agreed to testify against Solis. Rama pleaded guilty last month to a misdemeanor count of allowing a dependent adult to be injured. He could face up to one year in prison when he is sentenced on April 18.

Last February, Solis and Rama were charged with civil rights violations and hate crimes based on the victims' disabilities. Those charges were dismissed last October.

Related:
"Caregiver Seen Slapping Disabled Man On Cell Cam Is Sentenced" (KNBC)
http://www.knbc.com/news/15562929/detail.html

Copyright © 2008 Inonit Publishing
Please do not reprint, forward, or post without permission.

Click here for top of this page

Purchase this story for your website or newsletter . . .

Here's what subscribers say about Inclusion Daily Express. . .

Keeping advocates informed, inspired and connected since 1999.
Click here for daily or weekly delivery . . . OR
Try Inclusion Daily Express for ten days FREE . . .

Get your news here!