Man to face trial for hospital incident threatening to infect security guards with COVID19
Bristol Township PA April 2 2021 A 24-year-old Bristol Township man with a history of mental illness will stand trial for allegedly causing thousands of dollars in damages at a Bristol Township hospital and threatening to infect security guards after he tested positive for COVID-19 last year.
Dudly Ulysse, who has paranoid schizophrenia, had spent 14 days at the Lower Bucks Hospital mental crisis center waiting for a psychiatric hospital to accept him as an involuntary commitment when the alleged violent outburst happened last July.
Following a hearing Wednesday, Bristol Township District Judge Kevin Wagner held Ulysse on the original charges, which include multiple felony counts of aggravated assault and risking a catastrophe, as well as newly added ones.
Bucks County prosecutor David Keightly on Tuesday added summary charges of simple assault and harassment against Ulysse, saying he wanted to preserve the option to negotiate the case once it reached the county court system.
Keightly also reduced a criminal mischief charge from a felony to a misdemeanor after damage estimates — initially believed to be more than $12,000— came in under $5,000.
Defense attorney Sara Webster unsuccessfully argued the charges of aggravated assault and risking catastrophe should be dismissed since a hospital security guard testified he was not injured and did not test positive for COVID-19, and the incident did not result in widespread damage or public threat.
One of the guards, Moises Villanueva Jr. testified Tuesday that he believed that Ulysse learned he had COVID-19 shortly before the outburst.
“We believe that was the reason for his behavior,” Villanueva said.
Villaneauva testified that they were able to convince Ulysse to return to the negative pressure room, where patients with contagious illnesses are placed.
But once inside the room, Ulysse punched walls, ripped a cabinet door off its hinges, damaged negative air pressure equipment and tore a TV monitor off the wall.
Villanueva testified that he and the other guard tried to prevent Ulysse from leaving the room by holding the door shut. Ulysse knocked out the safety glass window, stuck his head out the hole and threatened to spit on them.
“He was screaming he had COVID-19 and he hoped everyone else got it,” he added.
During the incident, Bristol Township police responded and one of the officers managed to calm down Ulysse so he could be medicated and placed in restraints, Villanueva said.
Villanueva testified that he and the other security guards were wearing face masks during the incident, but he could not recall if Ulysse was wearing one.
He also didn’t know Ulysse was not housed in the hospital’s adult short-term psychiatric unit or if he had received psychotropic medication during the time he was waiting at the crisis center, before he tested positive for COVID.
After his arrest community members, former college professors and classmates protested outside the hospital calling for the DA to drop the criminal charges against him.
More than 3,100 people have signed a Change.org petition calling for criminal charges against Ulysse to be dropped; a family friend has also created a GoFundMe site that raised more than $6,700 toward his legal expenses.
Ulysse was a standout linebacker for Harry S. Truman High School who studied woodworking at Bucks County Technical High School where he graduated in 2014.
He attended Lycoming College on a football scholarship playing the tight-end position and studied music theory and business administration.
After his 2018 graduation he started a musical production company, OCSOL Life Studio, in his family home in the Farmbrook section of Levittown.
Later that year he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, according to his family. Over the next two years he was involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitals a dozen times.
Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub previously said the county mental health department tried to find Ulysse placement at a mental health facility while he was at Lower Bucks Hospital’s crisis unit, but none would accept him.
After his arrest, Ulysse was transferred to Norristown State Hospital in Montgomery County for treatment. He remains at Norristown State and he was recently transferred to a step-down unit.
Courier Times
