Former employee opens up about Mesa care facility where elderly woman was raped
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MESA, AZ (KPHO/KTVK) — The man arrested on suspicion of sexual assault at a Mesa assisted living center called Heritage Village Assisted Living has admitted to another sexual assault that happened back in 2012 at a different care facility.
Arizona’s Family spoke exclusively with a former employee of Heritage Village about concerns she had that led her to quit.
“There was not enough staff when I was there. Not enough,” she said. She asked that we keep her anonymous. The woman was a med tech and caregiver at the facility from last April up until mid-January. She reached out to us as soon as she heard Manuel Corral, a former caregiver, had been arrested for the rape of an 85-year-old woman at the facility.
“It didn’t surprise me but I was like, ‘At least he was caught,’” she said. “But who knows how, if at that place if it happened before and nobody was able to say anything.”
Corral started his shift as she was ending hers each night. She says he was the only employee in that particular building all night. The supervisor was normally in another building. We asked if she ever worried about the safety of the patients there.
“Yes. I was always thinking, ‘What happens when they don’t have enough staff or at nighttime — what happens at nighttime?'” she said.
Wednesday, Mesa police announced that during their investigation of Corral, he admitted to the February sexual assault, and also to another sexual assault he had been accused of in 2012. At the time, he was working at Heritage Lane Behavioral Assisted Living. Though it has a word in common with Heritage Village, that’s actually purely coincidental; the two facilities are not affiliated with each other in any way.
Heritage Lane told Arizona’s Family in a statement that they fired Corral as soon as they heard the allegations. Mesa police say they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him eight years ago, but they’re glad the victim reported it because it ultimately led to his confession.
“It certainly is something that weighs very heavily on investigators,” Mesa Police Det. Nik Rasheta said. “These are the most vulnerable members of our society.”
Heritage Village still has no new comment on the case. In their original written statement, they emphasized that they, too, fired Corral after learning of the abuse, and wrote that he passed background checks when they hired him.
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