By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
A former hospital employee pleaded not guilty Wednesday to committing sex offenses six months apart on two emergency room patients at University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro last year.
Edher Osorio, indicted in February, stood beside his public defender during his arraignment in Superior Court in New Brunswick before Judge Diane Pincus. Mr. Osorio’s lawyer, Gregory P. Jordan, spoke for him, as Mr. Osorio did not address the judge.
Later, she announced terms of the plea bargain that the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office had offered Mr. Osorio. In return for his pleading guilty to sexual assault and criminal sexual contact on the female victims, the prosecutor’s office would recommend that the former emergency room technician receive a three-year-prison sentence, be subject to lifetime parole supervision and have to register as a Megan’s Law offender.
Mr. Osorio, declining to comment afterward, left the courthouse accompanied by the same woman who was with him when he was in the courthouse for a pre-arraignment conference March 6. Mr. Jordan likewise declined to comment. Free on bail, Mr. Osorio is scheduled to be back in court May 3.
In laying out the case against, the prosecutor’s office has alleged Mr. Osorio’s first victim was a 36-year-old woman whom he allegedly fondled and digitally penetrated.
The victim complained about the assault, although a criminal investigation by Plainsboro police and the prosecutor’s office ended without Mr. Osorio being charged, the hospital has said.
Then on Nov.23, he allegedly forced a 60-year-old female patient to put her hand on his genitals and parted her thighs, the prosecutor’s office has said.
The woman alerted hospital officials, the prosecutor’s office has said. Mr. Osorio was arrested Nov.23 at his home in Princeton, with court records showing he lives on Winant Road.
He was charged in a three-count indictment in February with second-degree sexual assault and two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual contact. The second-degree charge carries up to 10 years in state prison.
Mr. Osorio, 30, has no other adult criminal record, records showed. He had cleared a criminal background check to work at the hospital, where he is no longer employed, the hospital has said.
Assistant Middlesex County Prosecutor Lynn Pilone declined to comment inside the courtroom Wednesday.
