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September 21, 1994

Suit claims girl sexually assaulted in psychiatric hospital

By Sandra McIntosh

An Alabama girl who was placed in an Atlanta psychiatric facility after being raped claimed in a suit filed Tuesday that she was then sexually assaulted in the hospital.

Tess Haser and her mother, Zora Seals, filed separate suits against Laurel Heights Hospital on Briarcliff Road in Fulton Superior Court. Gilbert Deitch, the attorney who filed the suits, said Haser was suicidal when her mother placed her in the facility on Sept. 21, 1992.

"She was abused at 14 by a couple of juveniles and a family member," Deitch said. "She had been in two other facilities before Laurel Heights."

Deitch said Seals was promised that her daughter, then 16, would be housed in an all-female wing, that she would receive family and sexual abuse counseling, and that she would not be strip-searched.

But in their suits, the two claim Haser was placed in a coed dorm with at least a dozen rooms with no locks on the doors. The arrangement led to another patient attempting to rape her, Deitch said.

Haser, a petite girl with long blond hair who recently turned 18, said in a news conference in Deitch's office that she filed the suit because she is hurt and embarrassed by what happened at the center.

"I suffered, I feel like I want to climb under a rock," Haser said, bursting into tears. "I hurt."

Laurel Heights administrators did not respond to calls for comment.

The suits also claim that Haser was "sexually molested and assaulted" by a staff member. Deitch said that allegation stems from "inappropriate touching" such as tickling the girl on her feet.

"They were just too chummy with her," Deitch said. "Any laying hands on a patient is, in my belief, totally inappropriate."

Seals pulled her daughter out of the facility in December 1992. Deitch said the three-month stay cost Seals about $ 75,000. Deitch is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

Laurel Heights has been the site of at least one other allegation of sexual assault. In February 1993, a 10-year-old boy was charged with molesting a 7-year-old girl at the facility. Deitch said his clients believe other patients were having illicit sex during the three months Haser was in the facility.

Martin Rotter, head of the state Department of Human Resources regulatory offices, said they could find no record of the alleged assaults on Haser, although he said the cases could have been reported to the county Department of Family and Children Services instead.