RALEIGH - The district attorney for Wayne County has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to review the inaction of Cherry Hospital employees who played cards and watched television as a dying patient sat unattended a few feet away.

Hospital administrators and internal police have not always provided all evidence against their employees, District Attorney C. Brandon Vickory III said Monday. Last week, he invited the SBI to investigate the death of Steven H. Sabock, 50. A patient at the Goldsboro state mental hospital, Sabock died after choking on his medication, hitting his head on the floor and then being left in a chair for 22 hours without food or water.

In the last two years, Vickory's office has dropped cases against at least six hospital workers arrested for assault. Vickory, prosecutor for Greene, Wayne and Lenoir counties, said Monday that the facts of what happens inside the state mental hospital are often murky. But on April 29, a security camera captured footage showing the hospital's staff ignoring Sabock sitting in a day room through parts of four shifts, according to a report issued by federal regulators last week.

The written account of the death that hospital administrators sent the Wayne County medical examiner that month makes no mention of the choking or fall, however, saying only that the patient "was sleepy all day, and that oral intake was poor." The pathologist concluded that Sabock died of natural causes.

Vickory said he was disturbed by the federal findings.

"Everybody's not sitting on their hands on this one," Vickory said. "But there's at least two two sides to every story, and we've got to get them both."

On Aug. 8, Vickory's office dismissed a misdemeanor assault charge against Tonivia Bryant, a Cherry health care technician arrested by hospital police in May after officers said she hit a woman in the face and head.

Exchange of violence

According to a police report, the patient assaulted Bryant and was restrained. Once the woman was held down, Bryant attacked the patient, striking her 11 times, the report said. Bryant then had to be physically restrained by other employees to stop the assault, which was recorded by a hospital security camera, according to the report.

Vickory said Monday that hospital police and administrators never told his office about the video footage of the assault.

After Bryant was arrested, Vickory said, she went to a magistrate and swore out a misdemeanor assault complaint against Lakeisha A. Harris, the patient she was accused of assaulting.

Both were given the same court date, and Vickory said the two mutually agreed to drop the charges against one other. Without knowledge of the video, Vickory said, the assistant DA handling the case agreed to the deal.

"Everybody apologized and hugged and there was sort of a 'Kumbaya' moment," Vickory said. "Sometimes it works out that way."

Harris, who could not be reached Monday, was not represented by an attorney in court or in the negotiations with the assistant DA and Bryant's lawyer.

Vickory said his assistant assured him that Harris seemed to know what she was doing.

Bryant said Monday that she was the victim, but didn't dispute that she hit Harris while the patient was being restrained by other employees.

"She hit me and pulled my hair," Bryant said Monday. "What I did was a natural human reaction. I was defending myself."

Bryant was fired and said she has had difficulty finding health-related work because of Cherry Hospital's reputation.

Retaliation forbidden

Hospital staff are trained to use specialized defensive techniques when they are attacked, but a state law regarding the use of force in mental hospitals bars staff members from retaliating with violence.

Jack St. Clair, the hospital director, has not returned calls requesting comment about Sabock's death or the arrest of two more employees on Friday for beating a patient last week.

Noelle Talley, spokeswoman for Attorney General Roy Cooper, said two SBI agents sent to the hospital are from the attorney general's Medicaid Investigations Unit -- a team of lawyers, investigators and auditors that reviews and prosecutes allegations of physical abuse of patients in facilities that receive Medicaid money.

Another assault

In addition to Sabock's death, the agents will also review the assault of a teenager with developmental disabilities.

Ricky Luciano, a patient, was struck in the back by Cherry psychiatrist Ralph Berg during a tussle over a T-shirt. The incident occurred April 28, the same day Sabock choked and fell. The doctor told investigators he hit Luciano after the patient bit him.

Though hospital cameras also captured that incident, Berg was never charged.

Federal officials have cited Cherry for serious deficiencies in the care of both Sabock and Luciano, and have threatened to cut off millions in Medicaid and Medicare payments from the hospital.

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.