DSHS asks sheriff’s office to consider action against caretaker in case of abused disabled man
No criminal charges have been filed in the case of a Whatcom County developmentally disabled adult who was neglected and abused for more than 30 years, but a spokesperson for the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Wednesday that the case had been referred to their office for review and possible charges against the caretaker.
On June 30, the Department of Social and Health Services was fined $13.35 million for failure to protect the abused man. The Northwest Regional Council was also named as a defendant in the case, although that portion of the civil action is still ongoing.
DSHS told McClatchy in an email that the department is unable to comment on specific details of the case, but said that they can make referrals to law enforcement agencies such as the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office. It is then up to the law enforcement agency whether to pursue criminal charges, the email said.
However, the spokesperson for the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office told McClatchy that the case will likely be pursued as a civil case rather than a criminal case, but did not explain why.
Brionna Aho, a spokesperson for the state Attorney General’s Office, also told McClatchy in an email that the AG’s office “has no oversight of county prosecutors and cannot direct them to pursue cases.”
NWRC did not respond to McClatchy’s requests for comment.
Alf Vatne was the state-approved and state-paid caregiver for James Rupke for decades.
Marcy Walters, the caretaker who took Rupke in after Vatne, told McClatchy that when Rupke first arrived at her home in March 2022 that he was hardly breathing, had festering flea bites on his legs, his feet were covered in fungus and he “smelled of death” after not bathing for weeks.
Rupke also had a poorly wrapped wound on his hands, she said.
“He had taken a fall, said to be at the previous caregiver’s home,” Walters said in an email. “A sore the size of a half dollar was on his palm. It had pus and rocks embedded so deep, my mother and I spent two hours alone carefully removing rocks from the sore from the fall.”
Walters said she and her mother prayed that night as they watched his labored breathing while he was resting.
“All he could share at the time was that he had asthma. What I found out myself in short time was that he actually had severe and chronic COPD, asthma, carotid artery, and much, much more,” she said.
Although Walters stabilized Rupke during his time living with her, it took a toll on Walters’ physical and mental health, she said.
The lawsuit against the state also laid out some of what Rupke went through during his time under Vatne’s care.
Vatne “subjected James to abuse, neglect, exploitation, and abandonment, all of which could have been avoided if DSHS and NWRC had conducted even the most rudimentary assessment of Alf’s qualifications or conducted any meaningful oversight of the ‘care’ that Alf was being paid to provide at taxpayer expense,” according to court filings.
Court filings said that Rupke was “stashed away” in a disrepaired, rat-infested shack in Vatne’s backyard for more than 30 years. Rupke was unable to protect himself against Vatne as a result of his extreme disability. No case managers ever entered the shack, and the rats and smell were never mentioned in any assessments.
Vatne told case workers Rupke had his own room in the house, but neither DSHS nor NWRC “took any steps to ensure that James had a safe place to sleep.”
The court filings also contended that Vatne would steal Rupke’s money, leave Rupke alone for months at a time, and that Vatne sexually abused Rupke personally and by hiring sex workers to have sex with Rupke.
This story was originally published July 7, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
