Sex offender sues hospital that won’t let him visit son, 9

MILWAUKEE » A registered sex offender forbidden from visiting his severely ill 9-yearold son filed a lawsuit Friday against Wisconsin Children’s Hospital, arguing its visitation policy is “cruel and causes unnecessary harm to families and innocent children.”

Security guards escorted Stuart Yates from the building Tuesday, five days after his son was hospitalized with a blood infection caused by ecoli, according to the lawsuit filed in Milwaukee County. Yates’ son has had several serious medical conditions since birth, requiring surgical transplants of his pancreas, liver and bowels, the lawsuit said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how long the hospital’s policy of barring registered sex offenders from visiting patients has been in place, but Yates said his son was born there and there have been no problems in the past.

Yates, 49, was convicted of second-degree sexual assault of a child in 1998 and was sentenced to six months’ time served under a deal with prosecutors. Yates said he didn’t know the age of the victim in the case and that the incident happened at a house party where there were strippers.

“They’re using my past record, 20 years ago, against me,” he said. “I served my time for it. I’ve been transparent about it.”

Hospital spokesman Andy Brodzeller said he’s unable to comment on individual cases because of potential privacy violations. Speaking generally, he said “the hospital does have visitation policies in order to ensure the safety of our patients, visitors and staff and those practices do allow us to take steps that would limit an individual’s access to our hospital.”