Crime & Courts

Hospital employee charged with sexual assault of 2 teenage patients

A patient care technician at Providence hospital in Anchorage had at least two victims, according to an officer's report filed in court. Both of the victims were teens who allegedly awoke in their hospital beds and found 28-year-old Allen Miller sexually abusing them.

Anchorage Police Department spokesperson Anita Shell wrote in a press release Wednesday that Allen had been arrested Monday on three counts of sexual abuse of a minor. Miller had been a Providence Alaska Medical Center employee since January.

The first assault happened in July, police said.

On Oct. 30, police got a report about a 17-year-old who was confined to the hospital's pediatric wing due to a vehicle accident. The girl awoke and found Allen touching her thighs and saying that "she felt warm," according to the charging document. He allegedly briefly sexually assaulted the girl, but she pushed his hand away, an unidentified individual told police. He or she also reported the teen acknowledged she was on pain medication but knew she had not dreamt or hallucinated the assault.

Then, on Saturday, officers went to the hospital to investigate another alleged sexual abuse incident. A caregiver had reported that Allen inappropriately touched a 14-year-old female patient, who subsequently told police Allen had sexually abused her in another manner, according to the charging document.

Sometime in July, the girl allegedly awoke and found Allen sexually abusing her. She told Allen to stop but he continued, police reported. At that time, the girl's grandmother was also asleep in the room. The assaults continued through the night, she said.

She told police she was scared to call out to her relative or tell the grandmother what had happened after the assault. The victim said "she was in fear of not surviving her illness if she jeopardized her treatment" at the hospital, as she was in Allen's care.

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Allen allegedly came into the girl's room on another night to change the heart monitors attached to her body. After he did so, he again began to touch the girl. This time, the girl told another relative that was in the room sleeping what had happened. Allen allegedly came back a second time and repeated what he'd done and was caught by the relative. Allen allegedly said he was changing the heart monitors.

The 28-year-old later admitted to an officer he'd committed some of what he'd been accused of in both cases, according to the charging document. He also allegedly said that after one such incident with the 14-year-old, he texted the girl and they "spoke about inappropriate and sexual things." The teen reportedly admitted the communication to one of the relatives but denied it to police. She further denied having any other type of relationship with the older man other than patient-caregiver.

Police say Allen acknowledged what he did was wrong given the victim's age and condition, and the next day he was arrested. Allen has no criminal record, according to the charges.

Contact Jerzy Shedlock at jerzy(at)alaskadispatch.com. Follow him on Twitter @jerzyms.

Jerzy Shedlock

Jerzy Shedlock is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2017.

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