A technician at a Florida psychiatric hospital has been accused of raping a patient multiple times while she was drowsy from her medications.
Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies in Oakland Park arrested Jeff Doresca, 37, on Monday on half a dozen sexual battery charges.
The alleged attacks happened after an unidentified 32-year-old woman admitted herself to the Fort Lauderdale Behavioral Health Center on Thursday for schizophrenia and depression treatment.
Shortly before 4:25pm on Sunday, the woman had been given her regular medications, which caused her to become drowsy and lose consciousness. She later woke up and saw a nurse putting a wet towel on her forehead.
After the nurse left, Doresca entered the room and asked the victim if she had showered. The woman said she hadn’t. According to an arrest affidavit obtained by Local 10 News, Doresca allegedly instructed the woman to take a shower and watched her as she did so.
Police said the man then allegedly touched the victim who was still drowsy and didn’t understand what was happening, a deputy wrote in the affidavit.
A staff member gave the woman additional medication just after 9:30pm which made her more drowsy. Doresca reportedly returned to the room and sexually assaulted her. He would do so five more times while the patient was “too drowsy and weak to resist,” police said.
The woman’s roommate reportedly witnessed at least one of the rapes. Surveillance footage also caught the man going into the victim’s room several times. He reportedly looked down the hallway before entering to check if anyone had seen him.
The roommate “saw the male tech having sex with (the victim),” the affidavit states. However, since the roommate didn’t notice the woman resisting, she assumed the encounter was consensual.
During a police interview, Doresca admitted to having sexual intercourse with the woman but said the patient “came onto him” and “threatened him that if he did not have sex with (her) that she would report him and he would lose his job,” the affidavit continues.
The document further states: “Doresca admitted that he was instructed when he was hired that he was not allowed to have sex with any of the patients (and) that it was wrong to have sex with a mental patient who was drowsy from being under the influence of her medication.”
Doresca told a deputy “he was not thinking straight when he had sex with a helpless victim.”
The tech has been arrested on six first-degree sexual battery charges and is being held in the county's main jail. If he posts bond, he’s been instructed not to contact the victim or work as a caregiver.
Doresca has been living in the US for two years on Temporary Protected Status.
