Ex-Nurse Ordered to Trial on Sex Charges

A former nurse at St. John’s Regional Medical Center was ordered Thursday to stand trial on charges that he molested two male patients, but a third sexual battery count was dismissed after the alleged victim was unable to identify the defendant as the man who fondled him.

Gordon Butikofer, 37, is scheduled for Superior Court arraignment Nov. 4 on two counts of sexual battery on an institutionalized victim. He is free on $10,000 bail.

Three men, all using a Spanish interpreter, testified at a preliminary hearing Thursday that they were fondled while being treated in the Oxnard hospital’s emergency room. Two witnesses identified Butikofer as the man who molested them, but a third said he was unable to open his eyes because of blood flowing from a head wound and he could not see who fondled him.

Two of the men--injured in an automobile accident in May--testified that they tried to stop the assault. The third said he was too ill from a stomach ailment to move while Butikofer fondled him in December.

Municipal Judge Edward F. Brodie ruled that there was sufficient evidence to show that all three assaults occurred, but Butikofer could be linked only to two of them.