How a Fort Myers Mental Hospital Missed Warning Signs About Employee Who Sexually Assaulted Patients

How a Fort Myers Mental Hospital Missed Warning Signs About Employee Who Sexually Assaulted Patients

How a Fort Myers Mental Hospital Missed Warning Signs About Employee Who Sexually Assaulted Patients

Benjamin Bland’s supervisors missed several red flags when they hired him to care for patients at Park Royal Hospital, a last stop for many of Southwest Florida’s seriously mentally ill citizens. Bland was accused of sexually abusing several female patients, triggering a lawsuit that led to allegations of negligent hiring and oversight. They didn’t know Bland lied on his résumé, falsely claiming he worked as a home health aide for 19 months. They didn’t know Bland was fired from his job as a Dollar Store manager amid accusations of sexual harassment and theft. They didn’t know Bland had been arrested twice in the past six years and admitted to choking a woman. Had any of those issues been caught, it’s likely that Bland wouldn’t have been hired, and he wouldn’t have had access to nearly a dozen mentally ill women.

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