Sterling Care Bel Air: Sexual Abuse by Unchecked Staff - MD
The federal inspector had asked, gently, whether she was okay walking through what happened on January 25, 2025. She said yes. Then she described a nursing aide kissing her on the lips. Attempting to kiss her genitals. Putting her in a wheelchair, taking her to the bathroom, and forcing her hand onto his penis through his clothing. When the aide had tried to kiss her genitals, she told him, in her words, "F*** No."
The aide, identified in inspection records only as Staff #11, is currently in jail. A hearing is scheduled for September 2025. The resident, who suffered a stroke and depends on staff for toileting, told the inspector she has been interviewed by the State's Attorney and is stressed about going to court. She said she doesn't want to mess up, because she wants to make sure he is not able to do this to someone else.
The next morning, the inspector returned and asked if the resident could go through the incident again. She said no. She'd had nightmares about it the night before.
Sterling Care Bel Air, a nursing facility on East McPhail Road, allowed this aide to work with vulnerable residents for more than a year without ever confirming his criminal history. A background check conducted before he started had been sitting in his employee file the entire time. It was incomplete. It did not indicate whether he had a criminal record or not. Nobody caught it.
The aide had been working at the facility since January 26, 2024. The Maryland Judiciary Case Search, which the inspector pulled up during the August 2025 complaint survey, showed a 2019 conviction for second-degree assault and fourth-degree sexual assault. It also showed charges filed on March 18, 2025, for abuse of a vulnerable adult, second-degree rape, and a fourth-degree sexual offense, all tied to the January 25, 2025 incident at the facility.
The human resources director told the inspector that the facility relied on the staffing agency to provide background checks for agency employees, and that she reviewed all of them before agency staff began working. She reviewed this one too. She said she missed that it was incomplete.
That was the sum of the safeguard. One person, reviewing one document, and she missed it.
The resident had been admitted to Sterling Care Bel Air in July 2024, following a cerebral infarction. She did not report the assault until January 29, 2025, four days after it happened, when she told a staff member identified as Staff #12 what the aide had done. The facility filed an incident report. The aide is now in jail awaiting trial.
What the inspection, conducted August 18 through 21, 2025, documents is not just a crime. It is the specific, traceable failure that made the crime possible inside a licensed care facility. The background check form existed. The HR director looked at it. It was blank where it mattered. The aide worked there for a year before the assault, and the facility had no idea what his record showed because his record, as far as their paperwork was concerned, showed nothing at all.
The Director of Nursing confirmed both facts in an interview on August 19: the facility did not have a complete background check on the aide that included his criminal history, and the resident had made an allegation of sexual abuse against him on January 25, 2025.
The resident told the inspector she had seen a counselor after the assault. That counselor has since left the facility. As of the inspection date, she had not yet met the new one. She described becoming more withdrawn since the incident. She is preparing to testify.
She is also a stroke survivor who depends on staff to help her use the bathroom. The assault happened during care.
The staffing agency provided the aide. The facility accepted the paperwork. The HR director, by her own account, reviewed background checks from the agency before staff worked at the facility. She reviewed this one. It was incomplete. The aide started working January 26, 2024. He worked there for nearly a year before January 25, 2025.
Federal inspectors classified the violation as causing actual harm, with the specific harm identified as psychosocial: nightmares, withdrawal, stress over the coming court date, a counselor she no longer has access to, and the weight of knowing she has to testify correctly so that, as she put it, he cannot do this to someone else.
The facility stopped using agency staff on July 6, 2025, according to the HR director. That was more than five months after the assault and more than six months before the September 2025 hearing.
There is nothing in the inspection record indicating the incomplete background check was flagged at any point between January 2024, when it was received, and August 2025, when a federal inspector pulled up the Maryland Judiciary Case Search and found the 2019 convictions in a matter of minutes.
The inspection covered four agency nursing assistants for background check compliance. One of the four had an incomplete check. That one was Staff #11.
The resident told the inspector on August 18 that Staff #11 has a history of the same thing. The public court records, which the inspector reviewed that same day, confirmed a prior conviction for sexual assault. The facility, which had his background check paperwork in the employee file for more than a year, did not know.
She cried when she described what he did. The next morning, she said she couldn't go through it again. She'd been up with nightmares.
She is stressed about court. She wants to get it right. The counselor who helped her after the assault is gone, and she hasn't met the replacement.
She is a stroke survivor who needs help going to the bathroom, living in a facility that handed that responsibility to a man whose record of assault and sexual assault was a matter of public record, and never looked.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Sterling Care Bel Air from 2025-08-21 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Download the official CMS inspection PDF from Medicare.gov
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.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: September 22, 2026 · Our methodology
STERLING CARE BEL AIR in BEL AIR, MD was cited for abuse-related violations during a health inspection on August 21, 2025.
The federal inspector had asked, gently, whether she was okay walking through what happened on January 25, 2025.
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.