Nixa police: Nursing home caregiver raped patient

A Nixa man was charged Tuesday with rape and sodomy after police say he sexually assaulted a patient at the nursing home where he worked.

John Carrier, a 25-year-old caregiver at Life Enhancement Village in Nixa, allegedly raped and sodomized the victim, a resident of the nursing home who is under legal guardianship and has a diminished mental capacity, according to court documents.

Carrier told police in an interview that he had sexual intercourse with the alleged victim and forced her to perform oral sex on him.

The alleged victim told police that she asked Carrier to stop and told him she did not want to have sex with him, but followed his directions because she was afraid of him, and he was a staff member telling her what to do.

During his arraignment Wednesday, Carrier entered a plea of not guilty. His bond was set at $100,000.

According to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services website, Life Enhancement Village has been investigated 20 times for complaints since July of 2010. While inspectors found no deficiencies in many of these cases, six of them resulted in inspectors stating the facility had failed to meet various operating requirements.

At least one of these failures was a Class I violation, defined by the department as "a violation which presents either an imminent danger to the health, safety or welfare of any resident or a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm would result."

The violation was related to an Oct. 10, 2014 incident in which a resident's condition began rapidly deteriorating, but was not properly assessed by staff, according to an inspector's report. The resident was taken to the hospital and died the next day.

The violation was downgraded to a Class II after a plan of correction was put in place. Class II violations are defined as "a violation which has a direct or immediate relationship to the health, safety or welfare of any resident, but which does not create any imminent danger."

A News-Leader reporter left a message for the owner of Life Enhancement Village with a representative of the nursing home, but the message was not returned by press time.

Nixa police said the investigation was ongoing, but not not give any further details.

Ryan Hobart with the Missouri Department Health & Senior Services declined to comment, but confirmed that the department was conducting an investigation into the allegations against Carrier.