SEDGWICK COUNTY —A Kansas man who admitted sexually assaulting patients at a Kansas hospital is scheduled for sentencing Thursday.
In September, Miguel Rodela, 28, entered a guilty plea to rape, attempted rape and battery, according to the Sedgwick County District Attorney's office.
Rodela, who was neither a patient nor a hospital employee, was arrested in the pre-dawn hours of June 15 after fighting with security guards.
A 76-year-old woman patient said she awoke around 1 a.m. that day to a man manipulating her catheter. She told police she assumed he was fixing it but noticing he was wearing no gloves or medical attire, she told him to find someone else to fix the catheter, according to the probable cause affidavit.
A nurse walked into the room, but when the man said he was a nursing student, the nurse left without questioning him. Soon after, the patient hit a call button to get the nurse to return and the man left. Security was summoned and the woman reported: “He violated me.”
A lawsuit against the hospital notes that Rodela was in the patient's room for more than 20 minutes.
Court records show a hospital security officer had just started checking surveillance video when he was alerted to another assault on the seventh floor. A nurse technician there found Rodela embracing an 82-year-old woman, his hands under the blankets. The patient said the man had kissed her on the mouth, according to the affidavit.
Soon after that, a security officer on the sixth floor spotted Rodela on top of a 47-year-old patient, lifting up her shirt. The patient had a traumatic brain injury that rendered her unable to speak and Rodela told a nurse he was her relative, although she was skeptical, according to the affidavit.
Under questioning, Rodela told police he had been drinking and having sexual fantasies about hospitalized patients. He said he entered the hospital through a door behind an employee, and that he came into contact with at least three patient. He said he rubbed and kissed them until they woke up, the affidavit said.
-The Associated Press contributed to this report.