Prosecution Controversy:
Scratch or Sexual Harassment?

A California jury acquitted an 81-year-old man of lewd conduct in May after a six-day trial in which he was charged with provocatively rubbing his genitals in a sexual advance to another resident sitting in the dining room where he was visiting his wife.

The man, who regularly spends 10 hours a day at the nursing home, claimed he was scratching a surgical scar. During the trial witnesses said the man had on at least five previous occasions kissed, held the hand of, touched the breast of, and exposed himself to the other resident, who has multiple sclerosis and a "diminished mental capacity" and whom the man claims is a friend of his and his wife's. The man's attorney claimed the prosecution was overdone. "The AG's office assigned three investigators to this case. They filed 21 reports. They put two prosecutors on it. I've seen murder cases that didn't take up these kinds of resources," the Sacramento Bee reported him saying.

The Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse brought the case. The man does not intend to move his wife to another facility.