Nursing Home Worker Arrested for Snapchatting Residents Having Sex

Last week, 20-year-old Alexis Williams, a medical assistant at a nursing home and assisted living facility, was arrested for not only watching a pair of residents engage in sexual intercourse but capturing it on Snapchat so she could share the incident with her friends.

Williams had been caught in the act last August at the Bristol Court Assisted Living Facility in Pinellas County, Florida. The two subjects of her depraved video were a 59-year-old man and an 81-year-old woman who were engaging in lovemaking in a private room. It is unclear how Williams gained access to the room to take the Snapchat.

While Williams maintains her innocence in this bizarre crime, when questioned why she felt the need to capture the two individuals engaging in a private moment, she said she thought it was funny and wanted to record it.

However, due to the nature of the social media app Snapchat, where the video is only available for a short amount of time before it disappears, Williams is confident that they do not have any proof of her misconduct.

The app, however, holds records of all of the video sent through its service (take note of that, even if you are sending consensual sexual recordings!) and was able to provide local police with the proof they needed to arrest Williams.

Reports state that one of her coworkers who witnessed Williams making fun of the couple tipped off police, though it is unclear whether or not this person also saw the video.

She was released from police custody last Wednesday but unsurprisingly was not invited back to her job.

Helen King of the Area Agency on Aging weighed in on the events that took place within the last week.

“I think it’s deplorable. I wouldn’t want it to be someone from my own family at that assisted-living when that happened. I hate the fact that she’s already out of jail that quick,” she said.

Still, Williams now faces one count of video voyeurism and one count of video voyeurism dissemination. It is unclear whether or not Williams will be barred from working with vulnerable populations in the future, but it seems like that would be a good idea as a condition of her arrest.

Unfortunately, abuse of elderly residents of nursing homes is a quite common occurrence, which leads many family members wary of placing their beloved parents, aunts, uncles or grandparents in care. Sometimes, this may even stop them from getting the care they desperately need.

Williams’ case, however, is unique in that the abuse was not targeted toward someone who was incapacitated, as much of this abuse often is. Instead, the abuse was hurled at two individuals who are still able to mostly care for themselves and were hoping to enjoy a private moment away from prying eyes. It is reprehensible to think that staff members at any nursing home or assisted living facility make fun of their residents for their own amusement, or record them “as a joke.”

Hopefully, this will be a lesson learned for the assisted living and nursing facility, as well as many similar facilities around the country. It is completely unacceptable to allow a member of staff to record residents, even if the moment is not necessarily a private one.

In the future, one can only hope that this particular facility will vet their new hires a little bit better and engage in more thorough staff training. It is clear that Williams was either not fully trained in her position or was totally disregarding rules that had already been set in place–and didn’t care about the consequences.

[Featured Image by Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office]