A Massachusetts aide is going to do some jail time for abuses he has committed over the years.

BOSTON –- A former nursing assistant who is charged with abusing an elderly Alzheimer’s patient at a Swampscott nursing home in 1990 was sentenced to jail time after he pleaded guilty to abusing patients at a Lynn nursing home, Attorney General Tom Reilly announced today.

Richard Elton Rudy, 50, pleaded guilty to one count each of patient abuse, and assault and battery as well as two counts of failure to appear. The failure to appear charges were the result of Rudy’s long history of defaults on the patient abuse charges over the past 15 years. Lynn District Court Judge Matthew Nestor adopted the recommendation of Assistant Attorney General Toby Unger and sentenced Rudy to serve 18 months in the Middleton House of Corrections. Rudy will serve one year on the abuse charges and six months for the failure to appear counts. Rudy had been returned to Massachusetts three weeks earlier after the Attorney General’s Office learned he was living in Arizona, had him arrested on the default, and extradited him back to Massachusetts.

It’s amazing to know that those who abuse patients can simply move state to state, and continue to work in nursing, because the lag time with reporting between states. This is a good reason for a national database for staff who abuse patients.