A Brooklyn hospital patient has filed a lawsuit against the owners of Brookdale Hospital, alleging a male nurse drugged and molested her during an overnight shift late last year.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the first time the nurse has been accused of improper touching.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was assaulted,\u201d said the female patient.\u00a0\u201cHe groped my breasts.\u00a0He groped my lower body. He stuck his fingers in other places.\u201d<\/p>\n
NBC New York is not identifying the patient because of the sensitive nature of her allegations.<\/p>\n
According to her lawsuit, filed this week, the alleged sexual abuse took place on the night of December 5, 2025, while she was inside Brookdale Hospital receiving treatment for an autoimmune disorder.\u00a0On that overnight shift, the suit says a nurse named Kuriakose Poulose administered an IV drug that physically paralyzed the patient.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter injecting Plaintiff with the drug that caused her to become incapacitated,\u201d the lawsuit reads, \u201cDefendant Poulose then began rubbing and fondling Plaintiff\u2019s exposed body, including her breasts and vagina, with ungloved hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poulose did not answer when the I-Team knocked on the door of his Long Island home.\u00a0The I-Team was unable to reach him by phone, and his attorney did not return a request for comment.<\/p>\n
In the patient\u2019s medical chart, Poulose wrote that she\u2019d become \u201cverbally abusive,\u201d and began \u201cyelling, shouting, and loudly craving\u201d higher doses of painkillers around 10 p.m., about an hour before she alleged the sexual abuse took place.”\u00a0 <\/p>\n
But the lawsuit accuses Poulose of \u201cbackdating\u201d that notation the following morning, an effort\u00a0it says\u00a0to discredit the patient before she was able to report the incident to police.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for One Brooklyn Health, the owner of Brookdale Hospital, said the hospital could not comment on the incident because it involved an open criminal investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the NYPD, on the morning of December 6, 2025, a female patient reported to a responding officer that she\u2019d been sexually abused by an individual inside the hospital the prior night around 11 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNYPD investigators continue to work with Brookdale Hospital regarding this incident,\u201d a police spokesperson wrote to the I-Team, adding that no arrests have been made.<\/p>\n
Now, more than seven months later, the Brooklyn patient is suing the hospital, arguing it was negligent to give Poulose access to patients because a search of his nursing record in neighboring New Jersey would have revealed he had been the subject of prior improper touching allegations there.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe should have no type of license at all,\u201d the woman said. \u201cHe should never have gotten hired.\u201d<\/p>\n
In March of 2025, the NJ Board of Nursing reprimanded Poulose in a \u201cConsent order of Discipline,\u201d which concluded he committed professional misconduct by failing to disclose three incidents in which he was accused of groping women in 2020 and 2021.\u00a0Two of the improper touching allegations came from patients; one came from a co-worker.\u00a0Poulose denied the allegations, but he was ordered to attend a monitoring program because state policy requires nurses to report incidents involving \u201cboundary violations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicholas Liakas, the attorney who represents the Brooklyn patient, said Brookdale Hospital should proactively notify all patients who have come into contact with Poulose, in light of his record of allegations in two states.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had prior issues well in the past that they should have known about,\u201d Liakas said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we want to get this story out, so that other victims know that you\u2019re not just hallucinating. You\u2019re not dreaming. If this has happened to you, if you\u2019re suspicious that this has happened to you, you need to speak up.\u201d<\/p>\n