Nurse who texted photo of unconscious patient’s penis surrenders license
By Peter Holley
A former nurse who admitted to using her smartphone to snap illicit photos of unconscious patients’ body parts has turned in her nursing license.
Kristen Johnson “did not contest the charge of moral unfitness in the practice,” the New York State Board of Regents announced.
The 27-year-old was arrested in May after a nine-month investigation revealed she’d used her smartphone to snap a photo of an unconscious patient’s penis, which she texted to coworkers at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y., according to court documents cited by the Post-Standard.
On a separate occasion, Johnson used the phone to take a video of a nurse cleaning an incapacitated female patient’s gastrointestinal blood clot, the paper reported.
The Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office opened an investigation after the nurse’s co-workers complained about Johnson’s texts.
Police later discovered both the photo and the video on the nurse’s laptop.
Authorities initially charged Johnson with two counts of second-degree unlawful surveillance and one count of second-degree disseminating unlawful surveillance, according to CBS affiliate WRGB.
As part of a plea deal, Johnson pleaded guilty in November to disseminating an unlawful surveillance photo, a misdemeanor.
The deal reduced felony charges against her but required her to give up her nursing license and spend three years on probation, according to the Post-Standard.
“Despite what certain people seem to think, it is a crime in the state of New York to view, broadcast or record images of another person’s intimate body parts, surreptitiously,” Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said in a statement last year, according to the Post-Standard.
