A man who pleaded guilty in the 2011 rape of a girl in the mental health ward at Children’s Hospital is now revictimizing her by proclaiming he didn’t do it in her civil case against him and the hospital, her attorneys say.
“Allowing a convicted child sex offender to deny harming his victim retraumatizes the survivor of child sexual abuse. It turns the civil courts into a child predator’s playground,” said attorney Gregory Zarzaur, who represents the child victim in the case.
Alabama is one of a minority of states that allows someone to maintain their innocence in civil court after being found guilty in criminal court of the same act. The lawsuit, filed by the victim, called Jane Doe in the suit, is challenging that practice.
Doe is suing Children’s Hospital and Melvin J. Williams, the man found guilty of her rape in the 2nd degree in a 2011 criminal case, in a civil suit in state court filed in Jefferson County in April of 2017.
“During this time, when she was without the protection of her family and especially vulnerable due to her age and her acute psychiatric needs, Defendant Williams, an adult male employee of Children’s, whom Children’s knew or should have known had a propensity for impermissibly crossing boundaries with children, took advantage of Jane Doe’s vulnerability.”
Doe, a resident of Talledega County, was born in 1997. In 2011 she was a 14-year-old, admitted to the mental health ward of Children’s Hospital in Birmingham.
Melvin Williams Jr. was a mental health worker at the hospital whose job was to monitor children. In 2014, Melvin pled guilty to raping the child and was sentenced to ten years of prison. His prison term was later suspended in place of four years of probation, according to the complaint filed by Jane Doe. Williams is now a registered sex offender in Jefferson County.
In his answer to the complaint, Williams, who is representing himself, stated he is innocent.
“The defendant denies all allegations of the Plaintiff’s Restated and Second Complaint and demands strict proof thereof,” he stated in July of 2021.
The lawsuit claims the hospital failed to protect Doe against the sexual assault while she was in its care. It alleges Williams raped Doe after pressuring her for hugs and kisses and sex in her room on the locked mental health ward at Children’s.
“Williams used his status and credentials as a Children’s employee to enter the Plaintiff’s room on the locked psychiatric unit in order to groom, harass, and ultimately rape her when she was a vulnerable 14-year-old child,” the suit alleges.
Williams declined a request for comment for the story stating he would make his case in court.
Children’s Hospital declined a request for comment due to the ongoing litigation.
In its response to the suit, Children’s Hospital argued that if Williams did commit the rape, he was acting outside of the scope of his employment.
“The defendant avers that if the plaintiffs allegations are true as to the acts of the defendant, Melvin Williams, such acts were not within the scope of his employment at Children’s of Alabama.”
Williams had no prior convictions when he was hired by Children’s according to court documents from his plea deal in the criminal case.
The hospital also stated in a filing in the case that it was without sufficient information that any rape occurred, which attorneys for Doe called “cruel.”
“Despite having knowledge of the events which took place on its own premises, and notwithstanding Defendant Williams’s admission and guilty plea to the charges stemming from the rape of the Plaintiff, Children’s inexplicably and cruelly continues to maintain that it “is without sufficient information that any rape actually occurred.”
The defendants argued that state law on damages is unconstitutional because it is vague about the standards for payment amounts.
The lawsuit alleges the hospital never notified the parents of children who were alone with Williams. A hearing on May 19 is scheduled for circuit judge Pat Ballard to consider the question of whether Williams should be allowed to argue his innocence in this case after pleading guilty in criminal court.
Resources for children who have experienced sexual assault include the Prescott House Child Advocacy Center in Birmingham and the Clay House Children’s Advocacy Center in Bessemer.