By Alana Bleimann and Kathryn Wood
SACRAMENTO – Defendant Gregory Harms, a nurse at Vibra Hospital and Methodist Hospital, will stand trial on three separate counts of sexual assault across a 10-year time span after his preliminary hearing in front of Judge Steve White in Sacramento County Superior Court Tuesday.
At the time of the assaults, witness testimony confirmed the three victims were incapacitated in their hospital beds, unable to defend themselves. One suffered from multi-system organ failure, with limited mobility, and was hooked up to a respiratory device. The victim could make hand gestures with her right arm, but was unable to speak.
Deputy District Attorney Carolyn Steffens called Officer Michelle Beattie, who testified that “she [the first victim] did not appear to be strong” and was “thin and frail.”
The victim explained to Beattie that the defendant was the day-shift nurse and had come into her room in the morning, as he normally would, but this time restrained her wrists “with a soft restraint” and proceeded to sexually assault her as she lay on the bed.
The first victim’s respiratory nurse therapist entered the room just after the assault took place.
“She [the nurse therapist] noticed when she went to check on her [the victim], the door was closed and when she went inside, she noticed the drapes were partially closed and [the victim’s] heart rate was elevated,” Beattie stated. And the victim was “tugging at her right arm” where the restraint was.
The nurse therapist also noted to Beattie that the victim’s briefs “were untied, so she re-tied them for her and they appeared shredded.”
The defendant was on the computer at the other end of the room, and the nurse therapist asked the defendant why the victim’s right arm was restrained. He failed to explain himself and instead simply stated, “Oh, I need to untie that.”
The second witness called to testify, Officer Melania Catanio, explained that she interviewed the victim, who told her “she remembered Mr. Harms coming into her room, restraining her with a wrist restraint, whispering a comment in her ear…”there was skin to skin contact” between the defendant and the victim.
Catanio told the defendant that he was not arrested or detained and was free to leave the room, however, he responded and said that he would stay and have a conversation.
Catanio proceeded to write and submit a search warrant for the defendant’s iPhone and computer because “often the person who committed the sexual assault will communicate about that assault, take pictures of victims, record the assault….can easily be destroyed.”
After this warrant was approved, a forensic evaluation was conducted in which searches of child pornography were found.
“There were numerous internet searches using terms commonly used to search images of child pornography,” Catanio explained.
Detective Donald Rowberry compiled a Cellebrite reader report and claimed that there was “no new evidentiary item” supplied on the phone, however the desktop had similar child pornography searches and approximately 245 nude photographs.
“There were search terms related to ‘teen’….all [photographs] were child pornography..10- to 12-year-olds,” Rowberry stated to the court.
During this time in the hearing, a second victim of Harm’s was named. She was also contacted by officer Catanio in November of 2019 in the District Attorney’s office in Sacramento.
This victim “had gone to the DA’s office after seeing a press release that he [DA] released Mr. Harms and stated that she had also been assaulted by him” in 2016 and 2017.
During the time of the assaults, she was in the ICU at Methodist Hospital because she had “a few medical emergencies… essentially had paralysis…couldn’t move her own body…unable to communicate,” according to Catanio.
The second victim told Catanio “that she had Mr. Harms as her nurse for four nights, three of which she described as being raped by him.”
The first time “she said she awoke to someone fondling her…and speaking to her….he gave her a kiss and whispered in her ear, ‘I would have never let you live out of your car’ and then she looked over and saw that his pants were down,” she told Catanio.
“He would come into the room, close the curtain…turn off the water to her machine and turn off her heart monitor before raping her. It was the same thing, always around the same time frame, around 1 a.m. that he would come into her room,” Catanio stated.
The final night of her assaults was “more aggressive and abrasive” in which “he really hurt her.”
Defendant Harms was able to be identified by the second victim as “she initially went to Harm’s Facebook page…didn’t immediately recognize him….located a woman who was related, his wife,…found family photos through the wife’s Facebook page in which she immediately recognized him.”
Officer Catanio then described a third victim that she spoke to in 2011. This victim claimed that the defendant assaulted her in March of 2011 at a facial and cosmetic surgery center.
On that day, she “went in for a cosmetic surgery…around 7:30/7:45 in the morning and said that she had been introduced to nurse Mr. Harms and it was indicated that he was going to be her recovery nurse,” Catanio said.
The defendant administered an initial IV and some medication prior to her surgery, telling the victim that the pills “would make her fall asleep.”
The victim then described constantly being “in a fog” and coming in and out of sleep. She woke up on the recovery bed and felt “a mouth on her mouth” and also “felt a mustache” after he had raped her. This is when she knew it was the defendant who harmed her as “no other male at the cosmetic center had a mustache,” Catanio claimed.
This third victim was “not interested in pursuing a criminal investigation,” according to an additional witness, Sgt. Michelle Hendricks.
Harm’s defense team of Michael Chastaine and Jessica Davis argued that “there’s no reason to believe that the phone holds evidence for [the first victim’s] allegations” and “there’s simply nothing…that connects to these allegations against Mr. Harms.”
In addition, the search warrant “was problematic,” according to the defense team that noted the defendant lives in the community, has family, and there is no evidence that he would not make his court appearances because he has no prior criminal record.
“The conduct is very particularized… it’s not kidnapping women off the street…in a specialized setting….one that he no longer has no access to…does not have a nurse’s license,” they said, requesting bail should be set at $500,000 in order to “give him a chance to defend himself outside of the jail setting.”
On the other hand, DDA Steffens argued that bail be set at $2 million, but even granting bail “would not be appropriate” as the defendant “took advantage of his profession to prey upon women who were completely incapacitated.”
In addition, “he’s using their mental abilities as his sword…to sexually assault them because they can’t defend themselves” and his conduct spans over 10 years. “It did not slow down but escalated,” Steffens said, adding the prosecution attorneys “believe he is a danger to the community and will be a continued danger to the community.”
Judge White claimed that he “wants to look at it [the case] more closely” before setting an official trial date, but does believe the offenses have been committed to a degree to warrant a full jury trial.
He set bail at $1 million, and a trial setting date for late February of this year.
Alana Bleimann is a junior at the University of San Francisco majoring in Sociology with a minor in Criminal Justice Studies. She is from Raleigh, 
North Carolina.
Kathryn Wood is a third year at UC Davis, majoring in Political Science-Public Service and minoring in Professional Writing and Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning. She is from Petaluma, California.
To sign up for our new newsletter – Everyday Injustice – https://tinyurl.com/yyultcf9
Support our work – to become a sustaining at $5 – $10- $25 per month hit the link:
