Lawsuit Says Smyrna Psychiatric Hospital Let Autistic Woman Be Raped by Patient

A lawsuit filed against Ridgeview Institute in Smyrna alleges that a 20-year-old woman on the autism spectrum was raped by a male patient while hospitalized there, and that a staff member who learned of the assault did nothing to help her. The woman was hospitalized for four days afterward, according to the lawsuit, which was filed by her guardian.

According to the lawsuit, the woman was transferred from Wellstar Douglas Medical Center to Ridgeview Institute on April 13, 2026, without her guardian's knowledge. While hospitalized, the lawsuit claims she was raped by another patient, and that she told a Ridgeview staff member about the assault — but the employee allegedly took no action, failing to notify supervisors, police, or her guardian. As reported by Atlanta News First, the woman eventually told her guardian about the alleged assault only after her release, and that disclosure prompted a police investigation. Smyrna police later identified a suspect and issued an arrest warrant, the lawsuit states.

A Facility With a Documented History of Complaints

The lawsuit claims Ridgeview Institute has a history of patient safety concerns, citing more than 50 complaints that prompted state inspections between 2018 and 2026, information credited to the Georgia Department of Community Health's Healthcare Facility Regulation Division. Those inspection records, obtained by WSB-TV, showed the same regulators specifically cited the facility for failing to investigate prior allegations of patient sexual misconduct. The station's reporting also found that Smyrna Police responded to 1,511 service calls at Ridgeview between January 2024 and February 2025, and that officers have opened 40 sex-crime investigations tied to the facility since 2021 — though most were closed without formal charges, while some led to arrests.

The Edmund Firm, representing the victim's guardian, said the lawsuit seeks immediate improvement in Ridgeview's patient protections or the facility's closure. Atlanta News First reported it had requested a copy of the police report from Smyrna police and had contacted Ridgeview Institute for comment on the allegations.

Separate Criminal Case Against Former Employee

The lawsuit references a separate, previously reported criminal case involving Jalen Pugh, a former Ridgeview employee who was arrested in July 2026 on charges including statutory rape, aggravated child molestation, sodomy, and sexual assault on a person with a disability, stemming from allegations he assaulted a 15-year-old patient. Per the same WSB-TV account, a Cobb County judge denied Pugh bond on August 12, and police warrants noted that security footage captured him entering the victim's room ten times before his scheduled shift.

That case followed a July 2024 incident, previously reported by the Marietta Daily Journal, in which a 34-year-old male patient was arrested and later indicted for rape and aggravated sodomy after allegedly assaulting a female patient when staff assigned to monitor her briefly stepped away. At the time, Smyrna police reported 14 active sex-crime investigations tied to the facility between January 2024 and mid-February 2025. In 2021, a therapist employed at Ridgeview was arrested after being accused of coercing a 17-year-old inpatient into a sexual relationship, according to state legislative reporting cited by former state lawmaker Mary Margaret Oliver.

Regulatory Scrutiny and Mandatory Reporting Duties

Georgia state healthcare regulators cited Ridgeview in 2022 for failing to investigate a staff member's physical abuse of a patient, according to information compiled by the law firm Levy Konigsberg. Under Georgia's Protection of Disabled Adults and Elder Persons Act, medical and healthcare facility personnel are designated mandatory reporters required to notify Adult Protective Services and law enforcement when they have reasonable cause to suspect abuse of a disabled adult, with failure to report punishable as a misdemeanor, according to Justia Law.

At sister facility Ridgeview Institute-Monroe, also owned by parent company US HealthVest, two patients on suicide watch died by suicide in 2018, and Monroe police investigators later found that staff had falsified records indicating safety checks had been performed, according to reporting compiled by the Penn Law Group referencing Atlanta Journal-Constitution coverage. Ridgeview Institute in Smyrna was founded in 1976 and acquired by US HealthVest in January 2017, which expanded its licensed capacity to 188 beds by late 2018, per a PR Newswire release. The company has said the campus has served more than 90,000 patients across its inpatient and outpatient mental health and addiction programs since its founding, according to a 2021 US HealthVest announcement.