Aide Violated Resident’s Right To Privacy By Texting Humiliating Photo
Schneiderman: Elderly Residents Deserve To Be Treated With Dignity; My Office Will Prosecute Those Who Violate Their Privacy
NEW YORK, NY – March 11, 2013 – (RealEstateRama) — Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced today the arrest of a 25-year-old Certified Nurse Aide from Centereach, New York, who shared a humiliating cell phone picture of a resident in his care at the Woodhaven Center of Care in Port Jefferson Station. David Rover is accused of surreptitiously taking a picture with his cell phone of the resident’s genital area covered with feces and texting that picture to a nurse aide student without the patient’s permission and for no legitimate purpose. Rover was charged with two felony counts and faces up to 1 and 1/3 to 4 years imprisonment if convicted.
“People who place their loved ones in the care of nursing homes expect that their family members will be treated with respect and dignity,” said Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. “My office will take action whenever we see facility staff abusing the rights of the people left in their care.”
According to the criminal complaint filed against him in Suffolk County District Court, David Rover was employed by Woodhaven Center of Care, located at 1360 Route 112, Port Jefferson Station, New York, for less than two months when he violated Woodhaven’s rules by possessing a cell phone while on duty. Using the cell phone’s camera, he abused his position and exploited the nursing home resident’s right to privacy while he was on duty in August of last year. An investigation began after another student, training with the student who received the photo at North Shore Career Training Institute, alerted the administration at Woodhaven Nursing Home of the existence of the picture. When confronted by administration personnel at Woodhaven, Rover admitted that he took the photograph.
Investigators of the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit seized the cell phone last month and, after a forensic examination, located photographs which match the picture he texted. Today, Rover was charged with one count of Unlawful surveillance in the second degree, a class E Felony, and one count of Dissemination of an unlawful surveillance image in the first degree, a class E felony.
The case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant Attorney General Megan Gallagher of the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit’s Hauppauge Regional Office, under the Supervision of Regional Director Jane Zwirn-Turkin, Special Deputy Attorney General Monica Hickey-Martin and Executive Deputy Attorney General Kelly Donovan. The case is being investigated by Special Investigator Robert Joyce and Supervising Investigator Greg Muroff with forensic investigation conducted by Senior Investigator James Serra, under the supervision of Assistant Chief Investigator Milton Branch and Deputy Chief Investigator Thaddeus Fisher.
The charges against Rover are accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Contact:
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nyag.pressoffice (at) ag.ny (dot) gov
Twitter: @AGSchneiderman
