FORMER CAREGIVER PLEADS GUILTY TO NEGLECT

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr. announced today that former caregiver Robert L. Marion pleaded guilty to one count of neglect of a vulnerable adult. Mr. Marion was accused of leaving three developmentally disabled men, who were in his care, alone and unattended for 6 ½ hours.

Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge Robert E. Cadigan sentenced Marion to eighteen months incarceration, suspending the entire sentence. Judge Cadigan also ordered Marion to refrain from providing direct hands-on care to vulnerable adults for a period of two years; Marion was also placed on two years supervised probation.

According to the Statement of Facts, Marion was an “awake overnight caregiver” for three developmentally disabled men who live in a group home on Trotters Court in Baltimore County. The group home is run by an agency called Caring Hands, Inc. On September 24, 2003, at 11:00 p.m., the Chief Executive Officer of Caring Hands conducted an unannounced visit of that group home and found the three residents alone in the apartment. None of the men were harmed. The CEO stayed with the three men until 5:30 the next morning, when Marion finally returned to the apartment. Marion claimed that he left the men alone to help his wife clean their basement which had flooded.

All three victims are moderately mentally retarded. Two of the victims are non-ambulatory, and one of the victims has an impulse control disorder, making it even more dangerous to leave the men alone and unsupervised.

This case was prosecuted by Attorney General Curran’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit which prosecutes cases of vulnerable adult abuse in facilities that receive Medicaid funds.

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