Nurse Gets Probation, $500 Fine for Sex Assault on Quadriplegic

Declaring that he has “grave doubts” about the victim’s testimony, a Los Angeles Municipal Court judge imposed probation and a $500 fine Thursday on a male nurse who was convicted in 1983 of sexually assaulting a male quadriplegic hospital patient.

Turning aside a deputy city attorney’s request for a 270-day jail sentence for registered nurse Richard Lee Jensen, 41, of Granada Hills, Judge Richard C. Hubbell said from the bench that he is “terribly concerned” about the marital problems that Jensen has suffered as a result of his conviction.

Despite a probation officer’s assertion that Jensen had once been accused of, but not formally charged with, sexually molesting a 6-year-old boy, the judge characterized Jensen as “a man of unblemished character and record. . . .”

Hubbell’s action drew a sharp response Thursday from Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, who, when he was city attorney, had appeared in court on the Jensen case and had told reporters that Jensen should serve time in County Jail.

Both Jensen and his attorney have criticized Reiner’s involvement, claiming that the former city attorney was seeking publicity.

“This is about as outrageous as you can get,” Reiner said of Hubbell. “He’s going to give weak-kneed judges a bad name. There isn’t a question that he (Jensen) should have been given a severe jail sentence.”

Outside court, the prosecutor, Deputy City Atty. Herb Zinman, said, “There’s no doubt in my mind he (Hubbell) was overly sympathetic to Mr. Jensen. . . . It appeared to me the judge had a predisposition (in Jensen’s favor) before walking into the court.”

Under California case law, Hubbell could have considered the uncharged crime when he sentenced Jensen, Zinman said, but the judge refused to allow him to bring up the alleged molestation incident at the sentencing hearing.

“He was more concerned about what has happened to the family and the life of the defendant than he was with the family of the victim,” Zinman said.

The victim’s wife, Kathie Martinez, called the sentence “a little slap on the wrist. . . . I don’t think it’s enough.”

Both Jensen and his attorney, Paul Doyle, declined to discuss the case with reporters. Hubbell did not return a reporter’s telephone call.

Jensen was convicted in December, 1983, of three misdemeanor counts--one of lewd conduct and two of battery--stemming from an incident that occurred the previous May at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Hollywood. Jensen at the time was employed as a registered nurse in the hospital’s intensive care unit. He has since been discharged and is unemployed.

During Jensen’s trial, Hubbell briefly moved his courtroom to the bedside of the victim, Edward Martinez, 33, of Baldwin Park. Martinez, an assistant vice president of Security Pacific National Bank, suffers from an acute case of multiple sclerosis and for more than two years has been unable to speak or breathe without the aid of a respirator. He has been in the hospital since December, 1982.

Martinez testified through a painstaking process in which he spelled out “yes” or “no” answers to questions posed by Zinman by blinking his eyes or nodding his head as an attendant pointed to letters on an alphabet board.

‘Excruciatingly Painful’

Jensen entered his hospital room to perform the approved procedure of inserting a catheter to drain his bladder, Martinez said. But both before and after inserting the catheter, Martinez said, Jensen masturbated him, an act rendered “excruciatingly painful” by the catheter, Zinman said.

Later, Martinez said, Jensen briefly draped a sheet over his head as if he were dead.

Before he sentenced Jensen, Hubbell said he had reservations about the accuracy of Martinez’s account.

“Considering the debilitated condition of the victim, I have grave doubts about his testimony,” Hubbell said.

In fact, the judge last February set aside Jensen’s conviction on technical grounds, only to have the it reinstated last December by a higher court.

Jensen was charged with misdemeanors because at the time the crimes occurred, state law did not allow for felony prosecutions of the type of sexual assault Jensen was charged with. Prompted by publicity surrounding the Jensen case, the Legislature last year enacted a bill that permits such crimes to be charged as felonies.