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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