Ex-nurse’s aide avoids prison with plea deal

staff report

YOUNGSTOWN — A 24-year-old fired nurse’s aide, who was initially charged with patient abuse, has entered a plea to a reduced charge of patient endangerment and been sentenced to a six-month suspended jail term, a $500 suspended fine and two years’ nonreporting probation.

Lillian Talley, of Canfield Road, entered an Alford plea and drew the sentence Tuesday from Judge Lou A. D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

By entering an Alford plea, she maintained her innocence but accepted the consequences of a conviction.

The original patient-abuse charge was a fourth-degree felony, carrying a possible six to 18 months of incarceration upon conviction. The patient-endangerment charge is a first-degree misdemeanor, carrying up to six months in jail.

Although Talley escaped serving jail time or paying a fine, an investigator for the Ohio Department of Health, which licenses nursing homes and maintains a registry of nurses’ aides, was at the Mahoning County Courthouse reviewing records concerning this case Wednesday.

Talley was arrested in January at her residence by police and the U.S. Marshal’s Task Force and charged with assaulting a 71-year-old female resident of Ron Joy Nursing Home in Boardman on Nov. 27, 2008.

The resident told police Talley grabbed her by both hands, bruising her hands, pushed her backward several feet against a wall and left the room.

The resident, who speaks Spanish, told police she asked Talley to change her bedsheets and was waving her arms at Talley, trying to communicate what she wanted when the assault occurred.

After the resident made the allegation, the administrator fired Talley and reported the accusation to the state.