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Tampa Police: Patient Raped In Hospital Bathroom

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By VALERIE KALFRIN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 5, 2008

Updated: 12/05/2008 05:16 pm

TAMPA - The state Agency for Health Care Administration is investigating an incident at St. Joseph's Hospital this week where police accused a 39-year-old homeless man being treated in the psychiatric ward of raping a female psychiatric patient.

Thomas Kelly Bolduc was held without bail at Orient Road Jail today. He is charged with two felony counts of sexual battery.

The 32-year-old woman was attacked at the hospital at 3001 W. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. about 1:30 p.m. Thursday, police said.

Investigators said Bolduc forced the woman to the floor of the bathroom in her room, where he held a hand over her mouth, raped her twice and threatened to kill her if she told anyone.

The woman reported the attack to hospital staff, who called police and the Department of Children and Families, said Lorraine Lutton, the hospital's chief operating officer. DCF was contacted because the patient is considered a "vulnerable adult" under their guidelines, she said.

The state Agency for Health Care Administration requires that hospitals report patient injuries, such as respiratory arrest, hemorrhages or sudden death. Lutton said St. Joseph's had not reported this incident to AHCA because it did not fall within those guidelines.

The hospital is conducting its own review, she said. It is too early to say whether the incident will change hospital policy, she said.

Shelisha C. Durden, an AHCA spokeswoman, said today that the agency had opened its own investigation in response to an inquiry from a reporter. "We take this type of incident very seriously," she wrote in an e-mail.

According to police, the woman told detectives she recognized Bolduc as the person who stays in the room across the hall from her. Investigators found physical evidence at the scene, police said. They also noted the woman's arm was bruised where Bolduc had held her down.

Officers arrested Bolduc about 9:20 p.m. Thursday after consulting with prosecutors, in part because of the man's and the woman's mental issues.

Lutton said the incident appears to have occurred during a 15-minute time frame between regular rounds that identify each patient's location.

"The patients were where they were expected to be," she said.

The 42-bed ward is organized based on psychiatric acuity, Lutton said. Individual rooms are separated by gender, but sections are co-ed, she said.

The staff is reminding patients to stay in their own rooms or the common areas of the ward and to alert the staff when someone breaks the rules, she said.

Public records show Bolduc has been in and out of state prisons from 1989 through 2006 on charges ranging from burglary to grand theft, mostly on convictions from Citrus County.

The hospital searches patients' belongings for weapons prior to admitting patients but does not review criminal records, Lutton said. "We have to treat whoever comes in regardless of their backgrounds," she said. "We're not a correctional facility."

Reporter Keith Morelli contributed to this report. Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800.

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