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Woman pleads guilty to patient abuse
By JOHN W. GOODWIN
YOUNGSTOWN
A 20-year-old Austintown woman could spend the next 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to the abuse of a nursing-home patient in 2009.
Iindia Weatherly, 20, of Staatz Drive, was charged with felony abuse of a patient after prosecutors said she was involved in an incident at a Boardman Township nursing home that left 87-year-old Donald Oliver with a broken hip. Oliver died a short time after suffering the injury, but prosecutors said it could not be determined if the abuse and injury led to his death.
Weatherly was set to go on trial Monday before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum, Mahoning County Common Pleas Court but accepted a plea agreement instead.
Under the terms of the agreement, Weatherly pleaded guilty to the charge, and prosecutors agreed to make no recommendation to the judge as to her sentence.
Weatherly could receive up to 18 months in prison on the fourth-degree felony charge.
According to J. Michael Thompson, an assistant county prosecutor, Oliver, who suffered from dementia, and Weatherly struggled over a door as Oliver was trying to enter a kitchen area and Weatherly was trying to stop him.
Thompson said Weatherly eventually pushed the door into Oliver, causing him to fall and break his hip. He said Weatherly then hit Oliver after he fell.
Weatherly, immediately after accepting the plea deal, said she did not fight with or hit Oliver the day of the fall.
She said Oliver was not permitted in the kitchen area unsupervised, and she was trying to prevent him from entering by holding the door. She said she had to eventually let the door go, and Oliver fell.
Weatherly said she stood by with another employee waiting for help from the nurse after Oliver fell.
Weatherly, who is four months pregnant, said she accepted the plea agreement only because she does not want to risk having her child while incarcerated and hopes the court will not impose jail time in light of the plea agreement.
Members of the Oliver family said they wanted to see Weatherly convicted of the felony charge to ensure she does not work in patient care again. They attribute Oliver’s injury and death to the actions taken by Weatherly.
“What it amounts to is that if not for this incident, we would still have him, he would still be here. Believe me, he is missed,” said Oliver’s son, Everett Oliver. “I believe she was angry and lost control, but she still took him away from us.”