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Caregiver Who Said 2 Mentally Disabled Patients 'Came On To' Him Pleads Guilty To Rape
Both Virginia patients Bernard Betts-King raped had learned nothing about sex and didn't understand pregnancy, doctors said.
After two women with mental disabilities at the same facility were found impregnated only about a year apart from each other, an employee has been found guilty of raping both of them.
Bernard Betts-King, a 60-year-old behavior technician, pleaded guilty on Tuesday, July 23, to the rapes of two mentally disabled women who he had impregnated while working in Fairfax County, Virginia. The women were clients of the MLVE Community Center, an organization in Springfield that supports and provides employment opportunities for people living with disabilities.
Betts-King was arrested earlier this year after police connected him to the two odd pregnancies at MLVE. The family of the first victim discovered she was five months pregnant in October 2017 and informed police, according to NBC New York. The woman, who is of Korean descent, would then give birth to a biracial baby the following February. She was unable to identify or name her rapist.
Then, in November 2018, another woman with intellectual disabilities in the MLVE program gave birth. This time, the victim was able to identify her rapist: She told police it was Betts-King who raped her.
Subsequent DNA tests revealed with almost full certainty that Betts-King fathered the second woman's child, reports NBC. Police believe he is also the father of the first woman's child.
Betts-King told investigators that the women “came on to him” in each circumstance, but attorneys said neither women had been taught about sex and have the intellectual capacities of children.
Neither women truly understood pregnancy, and had trouble communicating to their doctors about it, which led to one of the women getting a C-section, according to The Washington Post.
Police believe there may have been additional victims as well, and ask anyone with knowledge to contact them at 703-246-7800. Betts-King previously worked at another Virginia facility for adults with disabilities, Community Living Alternatives.
The sentencing is scheduled for November 1. He faces up to life in prison, reports The Washington Post.
