(MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE) An 89-year-old woman was raped in her bed at a senior living home in Hermantown, Minn., and then placed in a mental health unit of a hospital in nearby Duluth for nearly three days without treatment for her injuries.
Andrew Scott Merzwski, 30, a nursing assistant, admitted to raping the woman at Edgewood Vista senior living facility, after he gave the victim narcotics that he knew would make her “mentally incapacitated,” according to court documents. A St. Louis County judge last month sentenced Merzwski to 53 months in prison and ordered him to register as a predatory sex offender for 10 years.
The elderly survivor received no immediate treatment or counseling after she reported the rape to Hermantown police and facility staff. Instead, she was kept against her wishes in the mental health unit of St. Luke’s Hospital in Duluth for nearly 72 hours. Attorneys suggest that facility staff and medical professionals doubted the woman’s story because she was suffering from the early stages of dementia and memory loss.