VA Indictments Stand

VA Indictments Stand

BY JOHN BARTON
Police Reporter

DETROIT — A federal judge has decided not to dismiss 10 counts of poisoning patients from an indictment accusing two nurses of mass murders at the Ann Arbor VA Hospital. U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pratt ruled Thursday that federal prosecutors acted properly when they charged the women under state instead of federal law.

The nurses, Leonora Perez, 32, and Filipina Narciso, 30, were charged under a state statute with poisoning 10 men by “mingling a poison in the intravenously administered food and medicine of patients” at the Ann Arbor Veteran’s Administration Hospital.

Defense lawyers for the women argued that since the VA Hospital is on federal land, there were a number of federal assault laws under which their clients could have been charged.

They also pointed out that the state statute carries a maximum penalty of life in prison while the federal laws carry maximum sentences of five or fifteen years.

The prosecution, on the other hand, agreed the penalty played some part in the decision to charge Narciso and Perez. They also conceded that the alleged acts were assaults under the federal law.

But, they argued, the principal reason the Michigan statute was invoked because “it more precisely fit the crimes” of which the women are accused.

It is charged that Narciso and Perez deliberately injected Pavulon, a powerful muscle relaxant, into the patient intravenous tubes, killing five men and poisoning 10 others during six weeks in July and August, 1975.

Pratt apparently rejected both lines of reasoning, and ruled that poisoning was not an assault under federal statutes.

The decision was one of the first rulings in recent weeks that have favored the prosecution.

Prior adverse rulings have required prosecutors to make full disclosure of FBI documents to the defense or have imposed severe limitations on evidence the prosecution may present during the trial.

That trial is to begin March 1, according to Pratt’s timetable.