RALEIGH -- After years of denying his role in the 2006 beating of a mental patient at Cherry Hospital, a former staff member of the Goldsboro mental facility admitted guilt today.
Billy Gerald Wynn Jr. pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault on a handicapped person. A Wayne County judge then sentenced Wynn, who is suffering from medical problems related to kidney failure, to a suspended sentence of 75 days in jail and 24 months of supervised probation.
Dean G. Smith of Roanoke Rapids, the victim in the case, was in the courtroom Monday to see Wynn finally admit what happened inside the hospital four years ago.
Smith, who has bipolar disorder, said the beating started after he teased Wynn about his name, calling him “Billy Goat.” Wynn and two other staff members then jumped him and dragged him into a nearby bathroom.
Smith was left with a broken nose, fractured rib and the imprints of shoe treads bruised into his skin. A police officer who saw him afterwards wrote that Smith face looked like “hamburger meat.”
Wynn was fired from the hospital, along with fellow health care technicians Eric Jerrod Isler and James A. Smith.
Misdemeanor criminal charges against the trio, however, were dropped by the office of Wayne County district attorney Branny Vickory, citing a lack of evidence.
After Dean Smith’s ordeal was detailed in The News & Observer’s March 2008 series “Mental Disorder: The Failure of Reform,” N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper assigned a special prosecutor to the case who filed new felony assault charges against the three employees.
Isler and Smith pointed the finger at Wynn, who denied even being present when the patient was injured.
James Smith was acquitted at trial by a Wayne County jury earlier this spring. Isler pleaded guilty to failing to report abuse, a misdemeanor.
As part of his sentence Monday, Smith was ordered to pay a fine and court costs. As part of his probation, he was also ordered to have no contact with Dean Smith or other defendants to refrain from entering onto the property of Cherry Hospital.
Dean Smith said Monday he was a little disappointed that Wynn won’t go to jail, but said he is happy that a measure of justice has finally been handed out after years of denials about his abuse.
“That this case went to trial and that what happened came out in court will hopefully force Cherry Hospital to face up to what goes on there and fix it,” Smith said.
Regulators revoked the hospital’s certification to receive federal insurance reimbursements in Sept. 2008, following the death of a patient who choked on his medication, hit his head, and was then left unattended in a chair without food, water or medical attention for nearly a day. The hospital regained its certification last summer after the state spent more than $1.5 million on private consultants, but federal inspectors again cited the facility for serious violations last month following the improper restraint of a patient.
