Nursing home takes in seriously ill veteran with sex-abuse conviction

Paul King just wanted a place to call home.

King, plagued by poor health and a sexual-abuse conviction, worried he would be kicked to the curb.

Instead, he was welcomed to Fountainbleau Lodge, a Cape Girardeau nursing home, despite his criminal conviction.

"If we do not take care of him, who will take care of him?" asked Fountainbleau Lodge owner/operator Shafiq Malik. "What if it was your kid? What would you do?"

Malik added, "We are supposed to take care of people. That is our business."

Nearly blind with failing kidneys, King, an Army veteran, also suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure. The Cape Girardeau man spent time in and out of hospitals, beginning in August.

Earlier this year, he was hospitalized in the intensive-care unit at Southeast Hospital. When it was time to discharge him in March, a social worker indicated he would be taken to a small nursing home in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, sister Carol Christopher of Cape Girardeau recalled. Christopher said she was told the nursing home, Peaceful Pines, was the only available option.

"I feel like I have been left here to die," King said when his sister visited him in April.

The federal Veterans Affairs agency paid for his initial care, but that would have been only temporary. The VA would have paid for six months of care over a three-year period at the home which houses veterans and Medicaid patients.

Christopher wanted to have her brother admitted to a Cape Girardeau nursing home where she could more readily visit him and only a short drive to his doctor's office. But she said earlier this year many nursing homes won't admit those who are registered sex offenders.

Although he is a veteran, King wasn't eligible to apply for residency to any Missouri Veterans Home, including the one in Cape Girardeau. He also was barred from receiving federal housing assistance for homeless vets because of his sex-offender status.

The Missouri Veterans Commission, which oversees veterans homes in the state, said its policy bans registered sex offenders from living in its homes for safety reasons. In contrast, applications from veterans convicted of other crimes are considered on a case-by-case basis, according to commission spokesman Daniel Bell.

King was convicted of aggravated sexual abuse of his then-16-year-old daughter when he lived in Alton, Illinois. King contended he was innocent but that he agreed to a plea deal in July 2003 on the advice of his attorney.

He served four years in an Illinois prison. After his release in 2007, he moved to Cape Girardeau where he has family. He worked at a downtown Cape Girardeau restaurant before his health declined drastically last year.

In May, King was admitted to Fountainbleau.

"I am a lot happier now that I know something is permanent," King said earlier this month as he sat in his room in the assisted-living area of the nursing facility. "It has been nice. A couple of friends have come to visit me."

He said he often sees his sister, who is working again at Fountainbleau Lodge.

King said his sex-abuse conviction added to the challenges he has faced in life.

"They say people go to jail to pay their dues, but this is one situation where the dues are never paid," he said.

King said he believes nursing homes need to consider admissions on a case-by-case basis. Some people are habitual offenders; others are not, he said.

"You have to take into account the positive as well as the negative," he said.

Fountainbleau's Malik said it is important for nursing-home administrators to be a good judge of character. Malik said King would not have been admitted if he was considered to be a risk to its other residents.

"He is needing help," Malik said, referring to King's poor health.

Malik said he doesn't know whether King was guilty or innocent of sexual abuse. Regardless, it's clear King needs nursing-home care, he said.

"We can meet his needs and protect everyone else too," Malik said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3641

Pertinent address:

2001 N. Kingshighway, Cape Girardeau, Mo.