AMR sued after alleged sex assault

An 82-year-old woman was sexually assaulted by a paramedic in December. A team of local lawyers are now going after the alleged assailant’s employer, American Medical Response, which they say knew the paramedic was a threat to the public but continued to employ him anyway. 

Anne Marie Murphy, Donald Magilligan, Owais Bari and Gayatri Ragunandan with the law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, filed a lawsuit with the San Mateo County Superior Court on Friday, May 19, against American Medical Response, a Colorado company, which has been operating in San Mateo County for about 30 years.   

On Dec. 23, Miguel Ontiveros, 35, was on duty with his partner as paramedics for American Medical Response when they were dispatched to Colma Skilled Nursing Home to transport to the San Mateo Medical Center a 82-year-old woman who had fallen. 

The woman, dubbed Jane Doe in the lawsuit, was described in the document as physically frail and suffering from mild Parkinson’s disease and other health setbacks. She had been strapped to a gurney with three body straps and a cervical collar, leaving her completely immobile, according to the filing. 

While Ontiveros’ partner was driving the ambulance on Interstate 280, he was allegedly with the elderly woman. Rather than driving Jane Doe to Seton Medical Center in Daly City, less than a mile and a half from the facility in which the woman lived, Ontiveros is accused in the complaint of directing his partner to drive to San Mateo Medical Center about 30 minutes away. 

Ontiveros, a roughly 6-foot-tall, 250 pound man, then allegedly used that time to sexually assault Jane Doe after turning out the lights and blindfolding her, leaving her “hopeless to stop the assault.” 

“During this violent act, Jane Doe was totally immobilized and unable to fight back or stop the attack. Forced oral copulation is a heinous crime, but under the additional circumstances of the victim being elderly and immobilized, strapped to a gurney and with c-collar neck immobilizer it was nothing short of a sadistic act,” read the complaint. 

Once at the medical center, Ontiveros’ partner allegedly saw Ontiveros buckling his pants and reported the crime to her supervisor immediately, according to the DA’s Office. Meanwhile, Jane Doe, who only speaks Cantonese, struggled to inform officials of what happened to her until her daughter-in-law arrived at the hospital and translated between Jane Doe and police. 

AMR spokesperson Nicole Michel said in an email in April that the company immediately reported the incident to the California Highway Patrol Golden Gate Division and placed Ontiveros on unpaid administrative leave. 

DNA testing results linked Ontiveros to the alleged crime and on April 21, Ontiveros was charged with two felony counts of forcible oral copulation and elder abuse. He pleaded not guilty. 

Soon after Ontiveros’ arrest, he was terminated and the company has fully cooperated with law enforcement, Michel said at the time. A spokesperson for AMR said in an email Monday the company “does not comment on ongoing or pending litigation.” 

The incident wasn’t isolated, Jane Doe’s legal team argued in the complaint. An investigation found Ontiveros was accused of sexually assaulting an 80-year-old woman during transport May 22, but the victim was found to be not mentally competent, according to the DA’s office. There was also no corroborating evidence found in the case, according to the filing. 

Ontiveros was also an employee of the South San Francisco Fire Department but was fired in 2020 and charged with grand theft after allegedly submitting a fraudulent timecard and stealing about $15,000 for work he did not do over a period of four months, according to the complaint. 

The legal team argues in the complaint that AMR either knew or should have known about Ontiveros being fired but chose to hire him anyways and knew about the May accusation of assault and chose to do nothing. According to the complaint, the company’s motivation was “profit over safety” with lawyers arguing Ontiveros was kept on staff because AMR has struggled to hire and retain employees.  

“Through their acts and omissions, AMR defendants allowed a sexual predator to roam free and prey on the elderly,” read the complaint. “AMR’s decision to keep Ontiveros in service and riding in the back of ambulances as a paramedic was the result of corporate greed. AMR just wanted warm bodies to staff its ambulances and did not care whether it was employing a sexual predator like Ontiveros.” 

Ontiveros isn’t the only AMR employee to be accused of sexual crimes, according to the complaint. A Portland-area paramedic, Lannie Haszard, pleaded guilty to abusing eight women according to Jane Doe’s lawyers and the website of Kafoury & McDougal, the legal team who represented one of Haszard’s victims. A total of 35 have accused him of assault. 

Another AMR paramedic is on bail and faces criminal charges after being accused of molesting a teenage girl in Riverside County in or around March of 2022, according to the filing. 

And in 2020, AMR employees in New Haven, Connecticut, filed a lawsuit in federal court against the company alleging it has a culture of enabling sexual harassment, according to the complaint. AMR responded to that lawsuit by stating it completes background checks on all employees, offers paths for investigating and reporting complaints and will terminate employees when necessary, the complaint added. 

“Ontiveros’ actions are not an isolated instance of an AMR employee sexually assaulting a patient using their services. AMR defendants have enabled predators like Ontiveros to prey on the patients using their emergency services,” read the complaint. “It is apparent that there is a pattern of negligent hiring, supervision and lack of oversight in operation at AMR.” 

Jane Doe’s legal team are now seeking compensation for their client from AMR including past, current and future special damages, noneconomic damages, statutory and punitive damages and lawyer fees. The complaint also asserts discovery will uncover more defendants not listed in the lawsuit and potentially more victims.   

Murphy called the facts of the case “horrific” and said Jane Doe and her family were heartbroken after learning she possibly wasn’t Ontiveros’ first victim. And the alleged incident has had a major impact on the life of Jane Doe, who has feared contracting a sexually transmitted disease and has refused being transported in an ambulance after a fall this April. 

“Ontiveros is a sexual predator who never should have been allowed in an ambulance with an elderly woman,” Murphy said in a press release. “We are pursuing this case against Ontiveros’ employer, AMR, because they are accountable for placing a sexual predator in the ambulance and put profits ahead of safety. So many red flags were not acted upon in this case.”