PARIS — A sexual assault case continued Tuesday in Oxford County Superior Court as mental health professionals testified whether the woman Jeffrey Hedrick is accused of having sex with is mentally impaired.
Hedrick, 52, of Poland, faces 12 charges of gross sexual assault against a woman the state says is mentally impaired and unable to give consent or understand she could refuse to have sex. The state says the incidents occurred over a period of years and ended before 2010.
Hedrick has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Hedrick’s attorney, Sarah Glynn, said the woman was not mentally impaired and she and Hedrick were consenting adults.
The woman, in her early 30s, is in the care of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. She was living with a legal guardian at the time.
Thomas Collins, a licensed psychologist who assessed the woman in July 2010, said although she scored far below average intelligence, he did not diagnose her as mentally retarded.
Collins said he was concerned that her poor performance in cognitive tests could be due to a lack of mental stimulation and to people treating her as though the was mentally impaired for years.
He said academically, she tested at the level of a 7- to 8-year-old, but he didn’t know how much of that could be attributed to “getting rusty” after several years away from formal education.
Hendrick’s ex-wife, who divorced him after learning of his encounters with the woman, testified she had tried to teach the woman how to make change and balance a checkbook but was unsuccessful.
Collins said low cognitive ability doesn’t prevent a person from being able to make their own choices, but it could make one “quite naive” about the consequences of their actions. It could also make one susceptible to influences of others, including people in a position of authority.
He said her cognitive ability puts her in the 0.2 percentile, meaning that out of a random 1,000 people, 998 of them would likely score higher.
Jurors also heard from Christine Plourde, a psychiatric nurse practitioner at St. Mary’s Regional Health Center in Lewiston, and Jennifer Adams of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Plourde said she met the woman at St. Mary’s, where she had been taken for treatment.
Plourde said the woman’s IQ of 57 is indicative of moderate mental retardation, and that she would need other people to make decisions for her. She said people with IQs less than 69 can face difficulties with money management and other life skills.
Adams, who is assigned to look after the woman as a DHHS agent, said the woman is in assisted living under 24-hour care. Adams said the woman has been on a waiting list for therapy for four months. She said it wasn’t easy to find housing for the woman because of her age and mental limitations.
Glynn asked if the woman’s history of inappropriate sexual activity was a factor in the difficulty of finding a place to live.
Adams said it hadn’t been an issue. The woman is living in a co-ed facility, and there have been “no reports of sexually explicit behavior or anything of that nature.”
Both sides wrapped up their cases Tuesday. On Wednesday, Glynn and Assistant District Attorney Joseph O’Connor will make closing arguments and the case will go to the jury.
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