Ex-nurse from Delco admits to indecent contact at rehab
NORRISTOWN » A Delaware County man faces several years of court supervision and a psychosexual evaluation after he admitted to having indecent contact with a female patient at a Montgomery County rehabilitation center where he worked as a nurse, an incident the victim reportedly secretly recorded on her iPad.
Charles H. Dalce, 70, of the unit block of Larchwood Avenue, Upper Darby, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to six years of probation after he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of indecent assault in the incidents that occurred in September 2020 at Suburban Woods Health and Rehabilitation Center in East Norriton.
Judge Wendy G. Rothstein, who accepted a plea agreement in the case, also ordered Dalce to undergo a psychosexual evaluation and to comply with all recommendations for treatment. Dalce will be placed under sex offender supervision while serving the sentence.
Dalce is prohibited from having contact with the victim, other vulnerable persons and minors.
Additionally, Dalce faces a 15-year requirement to report his address to state police to comply with Pennsylvania’s Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act.
Assistant District Attorney Gabrielle Hughes prosecuted the case. Defense lawyer Jonathan D. Consadene of Paoli represented Dalce.
In a criminal complaint, East Norriton Detective Michael Henricks said an investigation began about 10:30 p.m. Sept. 27, 2020, when police responded to the nursing facility in the 2700 block of DeKalb Pike “to check the well-being of the victim” after a caller requested police to check on the victim “who was possibly being molested by a male nurse.”
According to court documents, the 50-year-old woman had called a relative, who in turn called police.
When police went to the woman’s room they found her “laying in her bed crying,” according to the criminal complaint. A nurse supervisor at the facility told police that Dalce was “the only male nurse on duty” at the time, according to court papers.
“The victim appeared emotionally distressed and frantic. The victim stated she just wanted to take a shower. The victim said she was embarrassed and felt gross,” Henricks wrote in the arrest affidavit, adding the woman stated she had been sexually assaulted by “my nurse Charles.”
Video of assault
Police confronted Dalce about the woman’s claim and he said he rubbed the woman’s back at her request.
“Dalce denied anything inappropriate occurred and he did not know why the victim would complain about him,” Henricks alleged in the criminal complaint.
The woman, according to court documents, was subsequently taken to Abington Hospital for evaluation.
During the investigation, the woman told detectives that when Dalce entered her room and closed her window blinds, which she had been keeping open because of what Dalce had been doing, she had set up her iPad to record and placed it next to her bed, according to the criminal complaint.
The woman alleged Dalce came over to the side of her bed, touched her inappropriately and had other sexual contact with her and kissed her before leaving the room. The woman said the contact was unwanted.
The woman turned the iPad over to investigators. Detectives viewed a video in which the woman can be heard crying and a male, his arm under the woman’s blanket, engaging in inappropriate conduct, according to the arrest affidavit.
“The male continues to moan through the rest of the video. The male is then seen exiting the camera view and then coming back to the victim bedside. The male is leaning forward and a kissing noise can be heard,” Henricks alleged in the arrest affidavit.
Other charges of aggravated indecent assault and unsworn falsification to authorities were dismissed against Dalce as part of the plea agreement.