State settles sex abuse suit for $3M
Friday, March 15, 2013
OLYMPIA — Washington's Department of Social and Health Services says it has reached a $3 million settlement of a suit brought by a young woman who was sexually abused by a staffer at a Lakewood mental health facility when she was a patient.
The suit alleged that supervisors failed to properly monitor an employee who had sex with the young woman when she was a patient in 2001-03. Managers fired the man when the abuse was disclosed; he later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges. Agency spokesman Thomas Shapley said DSHS "deeply regrets what happened to this young woman."
