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Care home
operator sentenced
to 20 years in
patient’s death

A plea agreement Raquel Bermisa
declined last year would have
required only a year in prison

---

By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

A care home operator convicted of manslaughter by omission -- believed to be the first in the nation prosecuted for the death of a patient -- was sentenced today to 20 years in prison.

Raquel Bermisa, 40, was ordered to serve a mandatory six years, eight months under a statute governing crimes against the elderly.

Chiyeko Tanouye was 79 when she died last August. The state contends that Bermisa failed to provide proper medical attention for Tanouye, who had been diagnosed with bedsores a month before she entered the Pearl City care home.

By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Raquel Bermisa, left, was sentenced today
by Circuit Judge Marie Milks.
Her attorney is next to her.

Left untreated, the sores led to complications that resulted in Tanouye's death, state attorneys said.

Bermisa showed no emotion when Circuit Judge Marie Milks announced her sentence and denied her request to remain free until Tuesday to allow her to visit a hospitalized niece.

In asking for the most severe sentence allowed by law, state deputy attorney general Michael Parrish criticized Bermisa for failing to acknowledge that she had done something wrong and showing "very little evidence of any remorse."

While Bermisa declined to make a statement in court, her attorney, William Harrison, said she did not want to see Tanouye die and tried the best she could to care for her.

"She feels a lot of remorse for what happened to Mrs. Tanouye," he said.

He charged the state with trying to make an example of his client in what's become a "novel case."

Bermisa's only error was failing to recognize the nature of the bedsores, Harrison said, although they believe the sores did not cause Tanouye's death. At trial, a defense expert had testified that a heart attack led to her death.

Based on letters of support Bermisa has received and her lack of a criminal history, what happened in Tanouye's case was, "at best, an aberration in an otherwise spotless background," Harrison said.

Outside the courtroom, he told reporters the state was "exacting revenge" on Bermisa for going to trial.

Bermisa could have faced only a year in prison had she accepted a plea agreement with the state last March. But she withdrew her plea and requested a trial, saying she did not know at the time of her plea that expert testimony from an infectious disease doctor was available.

Harrison also criticized the statute that governs crimes against the elderly, saying it discriminates against his client because Tanouye just happened to be elderly.

Had that law not been in place, Bermisa could have faced only probation since she has no previous criminal history, he said.

Bermisa has held up "remarkably well" because of her strong religious beliefs, and ultimately hopes she will be vindicated, Harrison said. An appeal is planned, he said.