A former employee of a San Mateo assisted-living facility is facing criminal charges after two residents died last year from drinking toxic dishwashing fluid mistaken for cranberry juice, prosecutors said.
Alisia Rivera Mendoza, 35, of East Palo Alto, was charged April 11 with two counts of felony involuntary manslaughter and three counts of felony elder abuse by the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office. Three residents of Atria Park of San Mateo drank the dishwashing fluid on August 28, according to a wrongful death lawsuit, and two of them died shortly thereafter.
According to the suit filed in September, one employee poured poisonous dishwashing fluid into a smaller container, which was then served to residents by another employee who thought the fluid was cranberry juice. The suit was filed by the son and daughter of Peter Schroder, who died on Sept. 7 at the age of 93.
A lawyer representing the Schroder family previously told Bay Area News Group that she hoped the company, not the employees, would be held responsible.
“In my opinion the blame needs to be directed toward the corporation, not toward the individuals in this case,” Kathryn A. Stebner told Bay Area News Group in September. “The people who work at these facilities should not always be the fall guys for things like this that happen, and I’m afraid that everyone’s going to point the finger at the low-paid employee and I think that is the wrong place to point the finger.”
The suit blamed poor management and a lack of staffing for the deaths of Schroder and Trudy Maxwell, also 93.
In response to the charges, Atria Senior Living issued a statement saying that the company “will continue to cooperate with the authorities throughout this process. We took immediate action in response to this incident, including reviewing and reinforcing our training and policies on chemical safety. As always, we remain focused on the safety, health, and well-being of all our residents.”
The charges against Mendoza come a few months after another Atria employee was charged for an incident with striking similarities. Lateshia Starling, 54 of San Pablo, was charged with one count of felony elder abuse after 94-year-old Constance Canoun died eight days after drinking an alkaline cleaning solution at Atria’s Walnut Creek facility. Prosecutors say she left Canoun unsupervised for long enough for him to ingest the fluid.
Mendoza is set to be arraigned on May 12 in Redwood City.
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