Achieve Rehab: Sexual Assault by Visitor, Resident Left Alone - NY
That is what federal inspectors documented at Achieve Rehab and Nursing Facility, a 170 Lake Street nursing home in Sullivan County, following a complaint inspection completed May 22, 2026.
The resident who was assaulted is identified in inspection records only as Resident #80. The visitor belonged to Resident #66, who shared a room with Resident #80 or was otherwise housed nearby. On the day of the incident, Resident #66 left for therapy. Resident #80 was left in the room with the visitor of Resident #66. The inspection record does not say who made that decision, who was responsible for monitoring the room, or how long the two were alone together.
What happened next is documented in the clinical aftermath. A Registered Nurse Unit Manager assessed the top half of Resident #80's body. Police arrived. Emergency Medical Services responded. Resident #80 was transported to the hospital. The facility administrator received a text message from the Assistant Director of Nursing reporting that the visitor of Resident #66 had been involved in an incident with Resident #80.
The administrator, interviewed on May 20, 2026, said they could not remember whether the police officer had spoken directly with Resident #80. They said Resident #80's family had been notified and was upset. They said they had interacted with the visitor of Resident #66 before and had observed no red flags.
Nobody had flagged the arrangement of leaving a cognitively impaired resident alone with an outside visitor as a risk, either.
Resident #80's medical situation made the assault particularly difficult to investigate and nearly impossible for the resident to process. Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner #2, who came to the facility once a week to see residents, explained in a telephone interview on May 20 that Resident #80 had encephalopathy, which caused memory impairment. Encephalopathy is a condition in which the brain's function is disrupted, often by liver disease, and can produce confusion, disorientation, and gaps in memory that are not within the person's control. Resident #80's encephalopathy was tied to liver disease, the nurse practitioner said, and as a result the resident's account of the assault became confused.
The nurse practitioner said that many of their prior contacts with Resident #80 had been appropriate, and that after the incident they asked the resident whether they were hurt and provided emotional support. But the resident could not hold onto what had happened. By the time staff were asking questions, Resident #80 did not remember the assault.
In a follow-up interview the next day, May 21, the same nurse practitioner was more direct about what that memory loss meant for the resident's wellbeing. A sexual assault, they said, would in theory have an effect on quality of life. It was difficult to assess that effect in Resident #80, though, because of dementia with cognitive decline layered on top of the encephalopathy. The resident minimized their feelings. When asked, Resident #80 said it was okay.
Social Service Assistant #4 also visited Resident #80 after the incident to provide support and to make sure the resident felt safe in the facility. Resident #80 did not remember the sexual abuse incident, the social service assistant reported.
The inspection record is silent on what the facility had done, before the assault, to protect residents from visitors. It does not describe a policy for monitoring shared rooms when one resident leaves. It does not explain how a visitor came to be alone with a resident who was not the person they had come to see. The administrator's statement that they had seen no red flags in the visitor's prior behavior is the closest the record comes to describing any pre-incident awareness, and it is a statement about the absence of concern, not the presence of a safeguard.
The deficiency was cited under New York Codes, Rules and Regulations 415.4(b)(1)(i), which governs resident rights and protection from abuse. Inspectors classified the level of harm as actual harm. The number of residents affected was listed as few, the second-lowest category in the federal harm scale, reflecting that the documented victim was a single person. That classification does not diminish what happened. It is a counting mechanism. Resident #80 is one person.
The complaint inspection was completed May 22, 2026, one day after the last staff interview documented in the record.
What the inspection does not contain is as telling as what it does. There is no documented account from Resident #80 of what happened, because Resident #80 could not provide one. There is no statement from the visitor of Resident #66. There is no description of what the nurse's assessment of the top half of Resident #80's body found. There is no account of what happened at the hospital. The record describes the institutional response, the notifications, the text messages between managers, the follow-up visits from the psychiatric nurse practitioner and the social service assistant. It does not describe what Resident #80 experienced in the time between Resident #66 leaving for therapy and the moment a nurse arrived to assess the damage.
The psychiatric nurse practitioner said that due to memory impairment, Resident #80's account of the incident became confused. What they did not say, and what the record cannot say, is whether Resident #80 had any moments of clarity about what had been done to them, before that clarity dissolved. The resident told a social worker it was okay. The resident told the nurse practitioner the same. Whether that was acceptance, or confusion, or the only language available to someone whose memory would not hold the event long enough to protest it, the record does not say.
Resident #80's family was notified and was upset, the administrator said. That is the last mention of anyone outside the facility walls who might have been fighting for this resident. The inspection record ends there.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Achieve Rehab and Nursing Facility from 2026-05-22 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: This article is based on inspection data downloaded directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) via Medicare.gov. CMS releases inspection reports in bulk; we publish the findings as documented by state surveyors in the official Form CMS-2567 Statement of Deficiencies.
Plan of correction: The CMS report we receive does not include the facility's plan of correction. Facilities submit plans of correction separately to state survey agencies and those responses may not be reflected in CMS data at the time of publication. The absence of a plan of correction in our data does not mean one was not filed. Readers who want information about corrective steps taken are encouraged to contact the facility directly or their state survey agency.
Corrections may have occurred: Inspection reports reflect conditions observed on the date of the survey. Facilities may have implemented corrections, staffing changes, additional training, or other remediation since the report was issued. We report what CMS provides and encourage readers to seek current information from the facility.
Editorial process: Inspection findings are extracted from CMS source documents and synthesized using AI, reviewed for factual accuracy against the original report by our editorial team.
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Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: October 31, 2026 · Our methodology
Achieve Rehab And Nursing Facility in Liberty, NY was cited for violations during a health inspection on May 22, 2026.
The resident who was assaulted is identified in inspection records only as Resident #80.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.