Aide guilty of abusing elderly

PROVO — The details were graphic, the confessions disturbing.

A few family members of the 10 victims couldn't bear to listen to attorneys give closing statements at the trial of the man accused of violating their mothers and grandmothers.

During the proceedings in a Provo courtroom, Jesus Partida, 34, sat silently with his attorney, taking the appearance of a man unlike the person jurors saw in videotapes from an interview with American Fork police in July 2005.

On the tapes, the man, Partida, wept as he confessed to fondling and touching elderly women while he worked as a certified nursing assistant at a nursing home in American Fork.

The attorneys asked for patience from the jury as they waded through sexually explicit charges and confessions.

"I don't want to listen to this," one woman whispered to her husband as she left the courtroom during closing arguments.

Others muttered under their breath as they heard details of what Partida did to 10 elderly women who suffered from dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

One of the two victims still living came to court Thursday afternoon in a wheelchair. The gray-haired woman sat silently, eyes moving from the courtroom door to her hands.

The members of the jury looked at the frail woman, then at Partida, then back to the attorneys. They listened for more than eight hours to videotaped confessions and a police officer's testimony, their faces showing a combination of shock, anger and fatigue.

Then, at 11 p.m. they returned a guilty verdict, dismissing Partida's defense that he made up the story to get out of a failing marriage and confessed out of a fear of police.

He will be sentenced Nov. 28 at 8:30 on the 15 felony sex abuse charges — four first-degree felony charges of sodomy and 11 second-degree charges of forcible sex abuse.

A first-degree felony charge carries the possibility of life in prison.

Prosecutor Dave Sturgill pleaded with the jury Thursday night to believe Partida's confession, with its disturbing detail. The confession was real, Sturgill said, not a concocted story to end a marriage.