2nd acquittal in 2017 nursing home death

An Ohio judge has acquitted a certified nurse practitioner of involuntary manslaughter and other charges in the 2017 death of a man at a Columbus nursing home, the second acquittal since the indictment of seven workers at the facility.

A Franklin County judge acquitted 55-year-old Kimberly

Potter of Delaware of all charges Wednesday, ruling that prosecutors had failed to make their case and the defense didn’t need to respond, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

Defense attorney Gregory Peterson called it “an ill-conceived prosecution from the very beginning.”

Background

The Ohio Attorney General’s office indicted Potter and six nursing home employees in 2019 on patient neglect and records tampering counts; three were charged with involuntary manslaughter in the March 2017 death at Whetstone Gardens and Care Center on the city’s northwest side.

The indictments alleged failure to treat serious wounds on the patient who died, and falsification and forged signatures about treatment in a second case.

In October, a county jury acquitted Jessica Caldwell, 33, a floor nurse and unit manager at the nursing home, of involuntary manslaughter and gross patient neglect in connection with the death.

“From the beginning, Whetstone vehemently disagreed with any suggestion that our employees contributed to the tragic death of a former patient,” said Ryan Stubenrauch, spokesman for the nursing home.

A third involuntary manslaughter trial is scheduled next month; prosecutors have dismissed felony forgery charges against three other nursing home employees, all floor nurses, in exchange for guilty pleas to misdemeanors.