Minor sexually assaulted by man donning phony scrubs

A man donning phony scrubs, posing as a physician, slipped into a hospital room and sexually assaulted a female minor.

At the time of the incident, the plaintiff was a minor and is now suing Memorial Hermann Baptist Hospital and its nurses for granting John Diagre access to her room and for not notifying the authorities once a nurse witnessed the rape.

The lawsuit was filed with the Jefferson County District Court on May 4. Judge Donald Floyd, 172nd Judicial District, has been assigned to the case.

According to the suit, on Oct. 20, 2004, the girl was a student participating in the hospital's postpartum program. Diagre, who was not an employee of the hospital, asked a nurse "to show him to an examination room so that he could examine her."

The nurse obliged Diagre's request without asking for his identification or asking "for what purpose," the suit said. "Thereafter, Diagre sexually assaulted plaintiff, a minor child."

Shortly after, a nurse entered the room and witnessed the sexual assault. But rather than calling security or the police, the nurse allowed the girl to finish the program and leave the hospital, "only to summon her back under the pretext that she had been 'exposed' to something while at the hospital earlier in the day," the suit said.

The suit does not say if Diagre was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a minor, or why the girl and/or her guardians permitted several years to pass before pursuing the lawsuit.

The plaintiff claims the hospital failed to provide her with ordinary care. "Not only did defendant negligently fail to correct the condition, defendant in fact helped to create the dangerous condition," the suit said.

She seeks to recover exemplary damages in an amount to be determined by the jury at time of trial, the suit said.

She is represented by attorney Brian Sutton of the Sutton & Jacobs law firm.

Case No. E-179-248