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Pawlenty calls for review of decision to send sex offenders to care center
May 27, 2004

Corrections Commissioner Joan Fabian is on the hot seat after the disclosure that her department placed several sex offenders in a Minneapolis nursing home, where they allegedly assaulted some of the residents there. (MPR file photo)

St. Paul, Minn. — (AP) - Gov. Tim Pawlenty demanded a review Thursday into the role the Corrections Department played in placing five male sex offenders in a private care center where they were allegedly abused at least two mentally retarded women.

"Go back, find out who made the decisions to refer the persons to the facility and on what basis," Pawlenty said he told Corrections Commissioner Joan Fabian. If the internal review finds mistakes, "we're going to act on them," he said.

He made the announcement hours after Attorney General Mike Hatch - who first brought the matter to light on Wednesday in announcing a lawsuit against the Concordia Care Center in Minneapolis - sharply criticized Fabian's response to the lawsuit. She initially called it a political move that unnecessarily frightened the public.

"I'll be on her until this thing's over with, either that or until she's gone," Hatch said in an interview on Minnesota Public Radio.

Fabian attended Pawlenty's news conference but was led away by one of Pawlenty's aides as she began to answer questions from reporters afterward.

Pawlenty, however, said Fabian's dismissal is "unwarranted and inappropriate," saying an initial review of the case appears to put most of the blame on Concordia.

Concordia's administrator has not responded to repeated calls for comment on Wednesday and Thursday.

He acknowledged that Corrections Department parole officers played a role.

"There appears to have been failure on both levels, or in appropriate ability to properly monitor on both levels," he said, referring to the center and the department.

According to the lawsuit and reports from the Department of Health, each of the five male sex offenders were under the technical authority of the state prison system. They all were considered too mentally or physically incapacitated for the prison system to care for.

Two were sent to the facility by Carver County court orders and one was sent from the Hennepin County jail. The other two were directed to the center by the department - one on a direct recommendation by Fabian.

The Health Department, which started an investigation in January and filed reports in April, found that three of the five men are Level 2 sex offenders, considered a moderate risk to re-offend.

All five were housed at some point in a secure floor of the ward where up to 10 female residents lived. In some cases, the men were transferred or kept in unsecured parts of the 94-bed facility. In another case, one was given passes to roam the grounds unsupervised.

Hatch's lawsuit alleges that at least two mentally retarded women were abused by the men when they engaged in sexual relationships the center deemed consensual. Another man was sent to jail after he was found hovering near the bed of a woman he'd been following.

"I don't call a relationship something where the woman ended up in an emergency room with abdominal pains because she'd been penetrated by the guy," Hatch said. "That's what happened in the case. Did they report it? Oh yes they did, but they reported it as consensual sex. That's not acceptable."

The health inspection found that inadequate supervision at the center had put some residents at risk, but inspectors have yet to impose fines or confirm that the center has made the changes it promised.

Hatch also accuses the center of having pest problems, including cockroaches and rats. Health inspectors said the problems had been addressed by the time of their inspections.

Pawlenty said he has asked that the Department of Human Services and the prison system to also investigate the conditions under which sex offenders are referred to a nursing home that is run by the state.

He said Ah-Gwah-Ching, in north central Minnesota near Leach Lake, is the only other nursing home that houses sex offenders. He speculated that the reasons the five men were sent to Concordia instead is because it's a four-hour drive away and the aging facility and has long had maintenance issues.

"There isn't a special or segregated place for these people to go, and there probably should be," he said. The Concordia Care Center is affiliated with a Wisconsin chain of nursing homes that were also accused of abuse. Benchmark Healthcare was accused of neglect and abuse by the state of Wisconsin in 2002.

Two Benchmark homes in Milwaukee were taken over by the state after the company pleaded no contest to charges of neglect and sexual assault of patients.

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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