Two former employees of an assisted living and memory care community will not serve any jail time after pleading guilty to encouraging two residents to fight each other.
Marilyn McKey and Taneisha Jordan, who worked in the memory care unit of the Winston-Salem, NC, Danby House in 2019, pleaded guilty Monday to misdemeanor assault of an individual with a disability, according to McClatchy News.
McKey received a suspended 45-day jail sentence, one year of supervised probation and 50 hours of community service. Jordan received a 30-day suspended sentence and one year of unsupervised probation. Both women were ordered to stay away from Danby House and were barred from contacting any residents.
A third former employee, Tonacia Yvonne Tyson, was acquitted in August 2021 on one misdemeanor charge of aiding and abetting an assault of an individual with a disability.
Danby House, operator ALG Senior and the three former employees were criminally charged in the June 19, 2019, incident. In January, the community settled a lawsuit filed in October 2020 on behalf of resident Betty Elaine Moore. The suit alleged that the three employees encouraged Moore and another resident to fight each other, then shared videos of the night with others who posted them to YouTube.
As McKnight’s Senior Living previously reported, Danby House had sought arbitration in the case, citing a resident agreement Moore’s sister signed when Moore moved into the community in 2019. Danby House called it an “isolated incident of criminal misconduct” by the three former employees, saying it did not condone such “egregious misconduct.”
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services temporarily barred Danby House from accepting new residents after the incident.
