SIMI VALLEY : Hospital Sued by Molestation Victims
Two women who were molested by a male nurse’s aide at Simi Valley Hospital filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the medical facility, alleging negligence and assault and battery.
Famed feminist attorney Gloria Allred filed the suit in Ventura County Superior Court on behalf of the victims, said attorney John West, Allred’s partner.
A judge in January sentenced Victor Sumner, 47, to 10 years in state prison for molesting the two plaintiffs and a third woman.
Sumner was found guilty in November of sexually battering the three women. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two of the women, who were 32 and 72 when they were attacked.
The assaults occurred last July on Sumner’s first day as a nurse’s aide at the hospital.
Sumner was not named as a plaintiff, but West declined to say why.
In his criminal trial, Sumner acted as his own attorney and cross-examined the victims, confronting them several times on the witness stand. The trial had to be moved from the Ventura Hall of Justice to the Simi Valley Courthouse for several days because of the frail condition of the witnesses.
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