Ex-Bucks Senior Home Administrators Failed To Report Sex Abuse: AG

UPPER SOUTHAMPTON TOWNSHIP, PA —Two former administrators of The Landing of Southampton entered guilty pleas Thursday for failing to report sexual assaults at the senior care community, authorities said.

Ashley Harker, The Landing's former general manager, and Joy Alfonsi, former director of health and wellness at the Street Road facility, each entered open guilty pleas to three counts of felony neglect during separate appearances in Bucks County court, said Kate Foley, communications specialist for the state Attorney General's Office.

A pre-sentence investigation will be conducted and both will be sentenced on March 21, Foley said.

In May, then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro filed the charges against the two, saying that they failed to report sexual abuse committed by a male resident with dementia on three female residents also suffering from dementia.

Following a joint investigation with Upper Southampton Township Detective Jim Schirmer, Harker and Alfonsi were charged with neglect of a care-dependent person, recklessly endangering another person, criminal conspiracy, and failure to report abuse.

The charges stemmed from a larger investigation by the 47th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury into potential abuse of care home residents.

Staff members reported three separate incidents of sexual abuse committed by the same male resident and involving three different female resident victims to Harker and Alfonsi on July 22, 24, and 26, 2021.

All the residents lived in The Landing of Southampton’s memory care unit due to suffering from dementia.

After receiving each of the three separate reports of the abuse, Alfonsi and Harker assured the staff that they would handle the situation and therefore the witnesses should not document or report the incidents themselves, authorities said.

Despite these assurances, neither Harker nor Alfonsi reported any of the three incidents of abuse to law enforcement, protective services, or the PA Department of Human Services as required by law.

Harker and Alfonsi’s failure to immediately report the first allegation of abuse allowed the male resident to remain in the memory care unit with insufficient safeguards where he continued to sexually abuse female residents, authorities said.