A Southern California man has been arrested and charged with raping a bedridden elderly woman while he was employed as her caretaker.
The suspect, Phuong Hoang Khong, 69, of Anaheim, is accused of sexually assaulting a 93-year-old woman who is nonverbal and suffers from dementia, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Khong served as a caretaker for the woman three times a week, the D.A.’s office said.
On Jan. 6, he arrived at a scheduled shift and allegedly covered the woman’s eyes with a medical facemask before removing the woman’s diaper. He then tightened the medical restraints around the woman’s wrists before sexually assaulting her in her bed, court documents state.
The victim’s family discovered the crime and, after threatening to call the police, Khong eventually turned himself in to the Orange Police Department earlier this week.
On Friday, he was charged with one felony count of rape by force, one felony count of sexual penetration by a foreign object by force, one felony count of forcible oral copulation, and one felony count of elder abuse.
No further details on the incident were released, however prosecutors said Khong had “a prior association with the woman.”
“He targeted the most vulnerable of victims, knowing that she was so helpless she couldn’t even cry out for help,” said District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “This is another tragic example that sexual predators do not age out of their sadistic deviancies, and we must never stop fighting to protect the defenseless from the predators who wish to prey on them for their sick and twisted sexual gratification.”
If convicted on all counts, Khong faces a maximum sentence of 75 years to life plus four years in prison.
