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Attorneys offer different versions of events in ’09 patient-abuse case
By John W. GOODWIN JR.
YOUNGSTOWN
A prosecutor and defense attorney agree a series of events involving a former aide led to the broken hip of an 87-year-old assisted-living patient three weeks before his death.
Both sides disagree, however, on what those events were.
Iindia Weatherly, 20, of Staatz Drive, is on trial before a jury in the courtroom of Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. She is charged with patient abuse, a fourth-degree felony that carries a possible six- to 18-month prison term.
During opening statements Tuesday, J. Michael Thompson, an assistant county prosecutor, told jurors the case against Weatherly would not be difficult to prove.
Thompson said Weatherly was upset because she was not permitted to work overtime, and she caused a commotion at the Sateri Homes residence on Boardman-Canfield Road on July 30, 2009.
The reported victim, Donald Oliver, came to the kitchen area of the facility where Weatherly was standing to see what the commotion had been about, said Thompson.
Thompson said Weatherly ultimately struck Oliver with the kitchen door, knocking the elderly man to the ground, then deliberately punched him. Oliver was taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center, where he died three weeks later.
Attorney Mark Lavelle, representing Weatherly, had a different take on what transpired before Oliver fell and suffered the injury that sent him to the hospital.
Lavelle told jurors Oliver had been a patient at the nursing facility for more than two years and was diagnosed with dementia and other ailments. Weatherly, he said, had been an “exemplary” employee at the facility for six months at the time of the incident.
Lavelle said Weatherly was trying to stop Oliver from entering a particular door in the facility’s kitchen, as was company policy, when the two struggled over the door. He said Oliver pulled the door after Weatherly had let the door go, and Oliver fell to the ground, causing his injuries.
Lavelle said an employee who witnessed the incident, initially saying it happened as Weatherly said, changed her story to say Weatherly had pushed and punched the elderly resident.
“That version of the story is incredible to say the least and is an out-and-out lie,” he told the jury. “After these events, Iindia Weatherly cried all the way home, contacted the supervisors at Sateri and cooperated then contacted the Boardman Police Department and cooperated.”
At what was to have been a sentencing hearing after a plea agreement in May, Weatherly apologized for being careless, but said, however, she never assaulted or intended to hurt Oliver. She ultimately withdrew the guilty plea and elected to go forward with a trial.