Susan Graham said she went to the emergency room at Portland’s Legacy Emanuel Medical Center on Jan. 15, complaining of light-headedness after having fainted
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Susan Graham said she went to the emergency room at Portland’s Legacy Emanuel Medical Center on Jan. 15, complaining of light-headedness after having fainted earlier in the day.
A male nurse connected Graham to an IV, she said. She recalled he made odd and inappropriate comments about her and her clothing.
“I like the pattern on your panties,” she said he told her, and continued, “You have such narrow hips.”
The same nurse led her to a bathroom to obtain a urine sample, telling her she’d have more privacy because the bathroom in her room didn’t have a lock on its door.
By then, Graham, 34, could hardly walk, and she said the nurse practically carried her into the hallway bathroom, followed her in, locked the door and raped her.
On Thursday, Graham’s alleged attacker, Jeffrey N. McAllister, 38, pleaded not guilty to an 11-count indictment in Multnomah County Circuit Court. It accuses him of raping, sodomizing and sexually abusing Graham and sexually abusing two other patients at Legacy’s ER.
In an interview later Thursday, Graham said she was not only devastated by her alleged attack but furious that it took four months for a Portland sex-assault detective to contact her and follow up on the complaint she’d made to a Portland police officer on Jan. 17, two days after the alleged assault.
She said she left the Legacy Emanuel ER the night of Jan. 15, and two days later went to a different hospital, Providence Portland Medical Center, to make the complaint and get a sexual assault exam done.
“I’m upset because it happened again to someone else after me,” Graham said. “I’m appalled on how the police handled my complaint.”
It wasn’t until April that Graham said she came home and found a Portland detective’s card waiting for her. She said the detective had left a note on it, asking Graham to contact her, that she wasn’t in trouble, and to “please call her ASAP.”
“ASAP would have been a long time ago!” Graham said Thursday.
The Oregonian doesn’t usually name victims of sexual assault but Graham said she wanted her name used because she said she believes it’s important to tell her story.
“I don’t want it to happen to anyone else,” she said.
A city audit in 2007 admonished Portland police for leaving sexual assault victims waiting weeks or even months before a detective contacted them. The bureau promised then to speed up detectives’ responses to sex assault complaints by having patrol officers fax reports to the detective division for follow-up.
Portland police earlier this week said their investigation into McAllister began when a patient came forward in April. Sgt. Pete Simpson said Thursday night he could not address Graham’s concerns, but confirmed that Graham did make her sexual assault report to police on Jan. 17.
“I don’t know what her original allegations were, if they were reviewed, by whom, and/or what happened,” Simpson said.
Investigators, though, have confirmed there was a gap between Graham’s assault report and detectives’ response.
Graham said for months she lay in bed wondering whether she’d ever hear from police to pursue her complaint. She said the officer who took her initial report on Jan. 17 acted dismissive of her complaint, “talked down to her” and “was very condescending.”
“She talked to me like I was asking for it,” Graham said.
Graham said she’s a recovering opiate addict who is on probation for driving under the influence of intoxicants and first-degree burglary convictions in 2012. She said she believes both McAllister and the Portland officer who took her initial complaint did not take her seriously because of her criminal record.
She said the sex assault detectives who contacted her in April have been professional. Since April, she said she picked out her attacker from a group of photos police showed her, and police got a warrant to obtain McAllister’s DNA.
But Graham questioned why no detective pursued her complaint earlier, considering she knew his first name and where he worked.
“I’m upset because it happened again, and it happened once before me, and the police knew,” Graham said.
Legacy Emanuel Medical Center fired McAllister in April after learning of the police inquiry, a hospital spokeswoman said.
On Thursday, McAllister’s attorney Daniel Woram entered a not guilty plea on McAllister’s behalf. McAllisteris charged with two counts of first-degree rape, four counts of first-degree sodomy and two counts of first-degree sexual abuse stemming from the alleged Jan. 15 assault against Graham, the indictment says.
It also accuses McAllister of first-degree and second-degree sexual abuse on Feb. 14, alleging he forced another patient “who was mentally incapacitated and physically helpless” to touch his penis, and that he penetrated her with his finger.
He’s accused of third-degree sexual abuse last Sept. 24, having allegedly touched the breast of another patient.
Graham said she saw the other two alleged victims in court this week, as they waited to testify before a grand jury. She said she wanted to hug them. Another is on probation for cocaine possession. Graham said she believes McAllister preyed on them because he saw them as “broken people.”
“He assumed erroneously we would not go forward,” she said. “I’m just glad he’s not working anymore – in the ER, of all places.”
Graham said McAllister placed the opioid fentanyl in her IV, a pain reliever commonly used as an anesthetic. Graham said she was conscious during the assault, having achieved a high tolerance for opiates because of her past abuse. She said when McAllister locked her in the bathroom and sexually assaulted her, he pushed her up against the sink. She said her arm accidentally pushed the water on, soaking her gown.
“I was aware of what was happening,” she said. “I said ‘no’ several times.”
Graham said McAllister shoved his fingers in her mouth when she tried to protest.
She described McAllister as “gregarious and real affable,” with hospital staff. Graham left the Legacy ER the night of Jan. 15, and went to a friend’s home. She said she didn’t trust Legacy to take her complaint seriously, considering what had just occurred.
Portland police said Thursday more victims have come forward and their inquiry continues.
–Maxine Bernstein