Psychiatric patient indicted on rape charges

By David Abel, Globe Staff

A patient at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain has been indicted on charges he raped a 14-year-old hospital volunteer, prosecutors said today.

Vernon Lee Thompson, 38, is scheduled to be arraigned this week in Suffolk Superior Court. Prosecutors said Thompson, a psychiatric patient at the hospital, twice raped the girl in a hospital stairwell on the afternoon of July 10. The girl was serving in the hospital’s Junior Volunteers Program.

The rape allegedly occurred when the girl finished her shift and was walking from the hospital’s main building to the personnel office. As she made a phone call from the lobby of the main building, Thompson allegedly “pulled her into his arms” and “tried to kiss her and she pulled away,” prosecutors said.

They said he pursued her into a stairwell “where he forcibly pulled her toward him again” and raped her.

Prosecutors added that at the same time a nurse walked down the stairs but did not stop Thompson. They said another witness later “saw the defendant with his arm around the victim and separated them.”

An attorney representing Thompson could not be reached today.

Neither officials at the Lemuel Stattuck nor the state Department of Mental Health returned calls.

Prosecutors said the girl disclosed the rape to a family member and was taken to the pediatric emergency room at Boston Medical Center.

Thompson was first arraigned for the charges on July 29 in West Roxbury Municipal Court. He was held on $100,000 cash bail.

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