Nurse pleads guilty to abuse of disabled girl in Mounlake Terrace

EVERETT, Wash. (AP) – A licensed practical nurse has pleaded guilty to abusing and torturing a severely brain damaged 5-year-old girl whose botched delivery resulted in a large malpractice award. Besides pleading guilty Friday to three counts of second-degree child abuse, Diane Camille Laurier, 50, of Arlington, admitted three aggravating factors _ deliberate cruelty, violation of trust and the victim’s special vulnerability. As a result, prosecutors said, she could face an 81/2-year prison term, three years longer than the top of the standard range, when she is sentenced Nov. 17 by Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Stephen J. Dwyer. Had Laurier been convicted at trial, she could have faced as much as 30 years behind bars, defense lawyer John Muenster said. Laurier’s state nursing license was suspended a year ago. Shelly Carpenter, discipline manager of the state Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission, said the panel would review information on the conviction before deciding whether to revoke her license. The case is based largely on surveillance videotapes from the Mountlake Terrace home of Barbara Porter, grandmother of little Chelsea Porter, where Laurier was working three shifts a week. Prosecutors said the cameras, installed after the grandmother found items were missing, captured images of Laurier hitting the girl, pulling her hair, covering her face with towels and other items and rubbing dirty diapers in her face in October 2003. The girl can see, hear and react to sounds and sights but is largely immobile and cannot hold up her head. She has seizures and requires 24-hour nursing care as a result of a series of foul-ups during her birth at Stevens Hospital in Edmonds. Her mother, Tamara Porter, also was injured when the baby, larger than doctors initially believed, got stuck in the birth canal and was forced back into the uterus, cutting off oxygen for about five minutes before a Caesarean section could be performed. In 2002 the family settled a lawsuit for $13 million from the hospital, radiologists and Toshiba American Medical Systems Inc., a manufacturer of ultrasound equipment.