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Show Thursday. October 20, 2005 NORTH COUNTY NEWSPAPERS Page 3 eritage Cere Center tries to move past abuse Jesus Partida confesses to charges of abuse, assault of 10 elderly women Marc Haddock Steven Fraser's most difficult dif-ficult day on the job was not Oct. 6. the day the media learned that a worker at the Heritage Care Center, which Fraser directs, had been charged with sexually abusing 10 elderly women at the care center. That was difficult, but not nearly as tough as the day months earlier when he had to tell people who had entrusted their parents and loved ones to the care center's keeping that these defenseless women may have been the victims of an appalling ap-palling crime. "When the news hit it was a stressful day." Fraser said, "But it was nothing compared to the day that i found out and had to let these families know." Jesus Partida. who is in the Utah County jail awaiting a bearing on Oct. 27. confessed to abusing the women during a two-year period. He was charged and booked into the Utah County Jail on Aug. 12. after confessing the crimes to American Fork police po-lice in July . According to a police af fidavit. fida-vit. Partida confessed to sexu 1 Sky High ps smuiw-Hty ;Moti,-S0t.,7K:?Stm. 1'Sl"05 CWie s'd the OiKoitfe fo'Srf n Nignty ;fton.-Sffl. 7 pir fc V'5 pro 5ql. WtrtlTWK $ pir t $ pir ValiOTtS SKrthn. Ii-B NinH Wor.-'ttnra. 7 i :1J m Sol nte t i I 5 pit IIS East Mam Lchi "68-9514 ! DIGNITY It s u hal erery person is due. It s u hat every person retiex-es at Qirist , Evangelical Church Jill 5 lilt E ir l-?n ft:TO tm srec t'tm :( i 225-JCit Onir Hip jcnuo Sundae Kornifig Worship st i0 5 This Wtft k't Message: "Worship: Taking Off Our Sheer" jumiav icnuo! iiii Cliiio'en tuutf anC Aairit a; LSI air Get the Most Out of life. : McCUlSTiOH j CHIROPRACTIC ij(imi( 680 East State Street Lehi, UT 768-0651 www H mrr Winter Eusia Ssit! Sureaflam tat mamsv iai r ft ally assaulting the women, and said he had selected victims who suffered from dementia or Alzheimer's disease. "Partida also stated these 10 women were not aware of what was going on." the affidavit af-fidavit read. "Partida said he abused these women because they were vulnerable." All but one of the women have died. Fraser said. Part ida's confession has left an indelible mark on the care center. "1 was shocked, as was anyone any-one who worked here." Fraser said, adding that Partida had passed all of the background checks required by the state for nursing home employees, and more. That includes a background check by the Utah Bureau of Criminal Investigation and a check of the Utah State Sex Offender Registry. The BCI background check is repeated annually for each employee. Partida was also a registered certified nursing assistant. While all of that is mandated by the state, the Heritage Care Center has a private investigation investiga-tion firm conduct an additional check. All were negative in the case of Partida. Fraser said. Bevond that . staff members M.,i.illt.liil ir...ni.lt1.fr.l.i, "ni "eing diagnosed with cancer can be frightening. Centra! Utah Cancer Center replaces the ''fright with "light". Our doctors partner with you through advanced care. We fight cancer with an integrated team of: Patient Care Coordinators Imaging Services Support Croups Wellness Institute Coordinates diet d exercise with cancer treatments Central Utah Cancer Center is aiso home to a branch of the Huntsman Cancer Learning Center. ur team of expert oncology physicians include: j. Cordeli Bott, wd Tj Blair, t,o Brian Tudor, 1.10 Mark Reitty, md Wendy Breyer, no Rick Brown, i.o WITH RISING ENERGY COSTS AND THE A.RR'VAi OF CO01E.R TEv?ERATURS, NOW iS THE fcEST Ti.v TO UAYZ S'Jrf YOL? FURfvACE IS O.FA"lt-G f-l:J UtO ECE.- Call o licensed Keating prcfeiio'ia! 1ccb vd vviJ c ro'f 'jtovytd faWvtvct A i v of tiewsed controctorj in your area i$ oAsilab b calling Rccr Viajntan Gav Lvsjovw m Sa" lew Ovat(&01) S32-9490. ojilde SaH Lake OvJSOO) 729-6791 vww.utrTngiO.OTg A 'list of tamr actors ii aiic cva'labit in yo jr local Ylio f aat-i 'lae' "r-ito '15 tlid ossisla'wt pomg yxnffwiy 905 Witt ecr.wip Cal t'jl w 8'?23 1ST 7 v Ir tv 'JJf-t-x vj" are trained to look for signs of abuse in patients. "We also have abuse protocols pro-tocols in place." Frasier said. "If there's any allegations we musl investigate." In the case of the women Partida said he abused, there were no indications of abuse. Still, the abuse protocols are receiving more attention than ever in the aftermath of Parti-da's Parti-da's arrest. "I don't know what more we could have done," Fraser said. "As part of our investigation investi-gation we did interview each employee and reviewed the abuse protocol. We talk about it every staff meeting, every orientation." On the other hand, Fraser said, the care center must balance bal-ance vigilance with a concern lor the resident's privacy. "The other side of that coin is that resident dignity is the other thing that we really stress." he said. "That means privacy, that when conducting intimate personal care, that resident is behind a door, behind be-hind a curtain." The repercussions for the care center have not been all negative, however, and Fraser Fra-ser said that's because family fam-ily members of the residents knew the care center was diligent dili-gent in screening employees. "There's been a lot of concerned con-cerned people who want to talk about it." he said. "But the response has been very posi 13 0(1 YOUR FURNACE MAY BE TRYING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING. tive. You don't want to be in the news, but thus far most of our family members have been quite supportive." Wilson Silva. whose grandmother grand-mother is a resident of the American Fork care center, said he was concerned about his grandmother when he learned about the allegations. His grandmother was not one of Partida's alleged victims, but she was under his care. "She only spoke Spanish, and because he was a Spanish-speak Spanish-speak ir.g staff (member), he was there with her a lot." Silva said. He said Partida seemed like a nice person. "They provided good services ser-vices for my grandmother, he said. "Everything was good about it. She was happy there even though she didn't speak the language." But the brother of one of Partida's alleged victims said he felt betrayed by Partida s confession. He said his sister was indeed vulnerable; she suf fers from cerebral palsy and has been severely mentally men-tally retarded all her life. She doesn't know what happened, but he's been dealing with a litany of emotions for weeks, since a Fraser called him in August and told hirn what happened. hap-pened. "Since then. I've been fighting fight-ing this feeling to go get myself my-self arrested and get myself thrown in jail where I could strangle the man with my own '. i bare hands." he said Mixed in with his anger is disbelief that a man he knew and who had helped his mother moth-er when she was a resident at Heritage could do something like this. "I'd seen Jesus in the ha!! for months, and he was always al-ways just really nice and po lite," he said. "It didn t seem like him." Partida worked for the car-center car-center from June 2W', to February Feb-ruary 2005. according to the police affidavit. He has been charged with four counts of forcible vJomy first -degree felonies and 1 1 counts of forcible sex abuse second-degree felonies He is being held in the Utah Count v Jail on $75,000 bail Actor d:ng to the aff idavit he is not a U S citizen, but he is in the I ).;"- States on a work visa I Heidi Toth contributed to this story Utah County News wmheraldextra.com ai ?- '- jiipnmi... ). . f ' 1 p-: j I - Central Utah 801.374 2367 wwtv.centralutahclinic Partida also stated these 10 women were not aware of what was going on. Partida said he abused them because they were vulnerable. -4 Clinic com i ? ED QUESTMR Gas ULlATI I ( bf 1 i m t-i'jtip Toll tt ibW) JT!!.M |