Employee at Vancouver senior living facility faces indecent liberties allegation

An employee at a Vancouver senior living facility that specializes in Alzheimer’s and dementia care faces an allegation of indecent liberties after he was discovered partly disrobed and exposed in a patient’s room.

Mahgum Eric Thorson, 47, made an initial appearance Tuesday morning in Clark County Superior Court. Judge David Gregerson set Thorson’s bail at $40,000. An arraignment hearing was scheduled for Oct. 7.

A Vancouver police officer was dispatched at 10:35 p.m. Sunday to Brookdale Vancouver Stonebridge, a senior living facility at 7900 N.E. Vancouver Mall Drive. The officer contacted a caregiver at the facility who said she’d been making her routine rounds, walked into a patient’s room and noticed it was dark, which was unusual at that time of night, according to a probable cause affidavit.

She was confronted by another facility employee, whom she identified as Thorson. He was standing near the room’s closest, “almost totally disrobed … wearing a ‘speedo-type thing,” and was partially exposed, the affidavit says.

The patient was near her bed wearing underwear and wrapped in a sheet, according to the affidavit.

In an interview at the Vancouver Police Department’s West Precinct, Thorson said he and the patient are a couple, the affidavit states.

Court records say the patient suffers from significant cognitive and mental decline due to advanced dementia. Following interviews with the patient, her guardian and caregivers, detectives determined she was incapable of giving consent to Thorson.