Two former senior living administrators were sentenced this week for failing to report the alleged sexual abuse of three residents.
The Landing of Southampton’s former general manager, Ashley Harker, and former Director of Health and Wellness Joy Alfonsi each will serve a sentence of three to 24 months in the Bucks County Main Correctional Facility after pleading guilty earlier this year to three felony counts of endangering the welfare of a care dependent person, according to phillyburbs.com. The prison sentences will be followed by six years of probation, and the women are barred from working in the healthcare field.
The charges stem from reports of sexual abuse committed by a male resident with dementia in July 2021 against three female residents who also had dementia diagnoses. All involved residents lived in the senior living community’s memory care unit.
Alfonsi and Harker allegedly assured staff members that they would handle the situation and reportedly advised witnesses not to document or report the incidents. Neither administrator reported the alleged incidents of abuse to law enforcement, the state Department of Aging’s Adult Protective Services Division or the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services as required by law, however, the state attorney general’s office said. Several employees made anonymous reports to the state after realizing that managers did not report the incidents.
The women were fired after state and local criminal investigations uncovered that they ignored and failed to report the abuse in 2021. The community was placed on a provisional license in April 2022 by the Pennsylvania DHS, although its full license was restored in July 23, four months after Kansas-based Legend Senior Living took over management of the community from Washington-based Leisure Care. The community now is known as The Province of Southampton.
Charges were filed against Harker and Alfonsi after an investigation by the Upper Southampton Township Police Department concluded that they “intentionally, knowingly or recklessly” endangered the welfare of residents and “placed multiple people in danger of death or serious bodily injury.”
According to grand jury findings, Harker and Alfonsi “made a conscious decision” not to report the abuse, failed to conduct an internal investigation, failed to properly document the incidents of sexual abuse, and failed to notify the residents’ family members or designated representatives of the abuse.
