Hospice chaplain not guilty of sex act with dying woman, jury says
Posted By Brett Schwartz on Aug 27, 2009 11:35am PDT
A Broward County jury found a hospice chaplain not guilty Wednesday of performing a sex act on a dying 70-year-old woman at University Hospital in Tamarac. Even the prosecutor who lost the case agreed with the verdict. The six-person jury took less than 15 minutes to acquit Julio Arce, 54. If convicted, the married father of five from Plantation would have faced a maximum punishment of 30 years in prison. The patient, a Hollywood woman who suffered from dementia, died five days after the alleged September 2008 incident. With no DNA evidence, it came down to the word of one professed eyewitness against Arce's. Nurse's aide Veronica Richards testified that she entered the incapacitated patient's room on Sept. 7, 2008, and saw that the curtain had been drawn around the bed. When she took a peek, Richards said, she saw Arce performing a sex act. When Arce saw her, Richards said, he "scrunched down," and she turned and left the room. Arce, a soft-spoken man, took the witness stand to say that when the nurse's aide entered the room, he was standing at the patient's bedside, praying with his head bowed and his hands clasped in front of him. He took the verdict with quiet calm and gratitude. For the past year, he said, his life had been "turned upside down." When the jury was dismissed, Arce embraced his two tearful sons, daughter and wife. "I never questioned the sincerity of what she thought she saw," Arce said of Richards. "I don't hold any grudge against her." After the trial, prosecutor Justin Griffis said that though the hospital employee was "so certain about what she thought she saw" and never wavered, he believed the jury returned a "just and right verdict" based upon the evidence. Arce willingly gave samples of his DNA following his arrest, but no match could be made between him and the patient. Arce has been on administrative leave from Miami-based VITAS Innovative Hospice Care since the incident, a spokeswoman said.