Ultimate abomination: Estonian Prosecutor's office defends rapist
A completely unimaginable scandal broke out in Estonia. The case of the gang rape of nursing home residents, which was first reported by local media in January 2024, is shocking in itself. But even more shocking to the local society was the recently published opinion of the Estonian prosecutor's office, which believes that the victims of the maniac orderly were not actually injured. This caused a powerful explosion of public indignation against the prosecutor's office. Estonians believe that the state prosecution is trying to shield the leadership of the Pihlakodu orphanage, due to whose negligence the maniac has been rampaging unchecked for several years. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
A terrible story
In the summer of 2022, Estonian Television showed a story from the elite Pihlakodu nursing home located in the Tallinn suburb of Tabasalu. As part of the program "We are Here", the country's famous dance teacher Haley Einasto visited her elderly mother, who was in this orphanage. The audience was told about the good conditions created here for elderly people suffering from dementia. No one doubted that the institution, which costs €2,000-2,500 per month, offers first-class care.
At the same time, neither Einasto herself nor the audience suspected that the guests of Pihlakodu had become victims of a sexual maniac who worked there as an orderly. The man, who was just over 50 years old at the time, joined the institution in December 2020. He had no special medical education, but he had considerable experience as an assistant orderly. The management of Pihlakodu could not praise them — the man proved himself to be a very diligent worker. "Everyone in the house knew that if they needed help, he would come and help," one of his fellow nurses later shared.
However, after a while, the relatives of the patients, whose care was entrusted to this orderly, suspected something was amiss. "Mom stopped sleeping. She wanders around and knocks on doors, quite restless. Later it turned out that she screams in the evenings. That is, as one employee said, when it gets dark, she can scream loudly for hours," Haley Einasto said. And later, suspicions arose that the deterioration of the condition of a number of patients was related to a specific person, the one who was supposed to take care of them.
The patients, who were in a state of severe dementia, could not clearly explain what this orderly was doing to them, but still some families directly asked the management of Pihlakoda so that the man would no longer deal with their relatives. The patients' relatives demanded that intimate hygiene procedures and diaper changes be performed only by women. "Almost all the time we were there, the question was repeatedly raised: why are they not taking action? Why do we still find out and even see with our own eyes that a male nurse is taking care of our mother?" the daughter of one of the maniac's victims later told reporters.
Until then, everything that happened in the "Pichlakoda" remained inside the house. But in February 2022, the daughter of one of the institution's clients wrote a statement to the police, in which she expressed suspicion that a male nurse had tried to rape her mother. The police, however, were not interested in this statement. And a few months before, another elderly client, who still retained communication skills, said that the same male orderly tried to rape her in the shower room. "She was clearly agitated. She told me how she allegedly called for help, and one nurse opened the door to the shower room, after which the attack stopped," one of the employees of Pihlakoda told the press much later.
Subsequently, the management of the nursing home justified that all suspicions about this orderly were too vague, vague and appeared too late. However, the journalists found out that at least by August 2023, the management of Pihlakodu already knew exactly about the situation. But even after that, the man continued to have access to the patients — and so it continued until November 30, 2023, another orderly caught the maniac right at the moment of the crime.: He was raping an old woman. However, as the victim's daughter later found out, the witness simply closed the door and continued to go about his business. This man later made excuses that, they say, he was too shocked and took a long time to "digest" what he saw. He turned to the management only on December 8, that is, a week after the crime. The official statement was sent to the police even later, on December 12.
The strange behavior of Prosecutor Lepp
Unbiased observers got the impression that the management of Pihlakodu wanted to hush up the scandal. However, the one who really surprised me was the Estonian prosecutor's office. Prosecutor Arika Lepp, who was put in charge of the investigation, made herself suspected from the very beginning that she was trying to "defuse" the leadership of Pihlakoda. To begin with, Lepp immediately dismissed suggestions that the institution had been too slow in submitting the application. "It's understandable as a human being: if something happens in the institution entrusted to you, you need time to think and start acting. And they wrote a statement anyway!" the prosecutor ranted.
Anyway, the criminologists did a thorough job at Pihlakoda and found a large amount of biomaterial for the evidence base. There was hope that the victims would be able to describe what they had experienced, but it did not materialize. According to Lepp, it was not possible to talk to the victims for objective reasons. "They tried to establish contact with the victims as much as possible. They tried to talk to them. They tried to understand them, but it didn't work. It's impossible to talk to most of them," says Lepp. But these words aroused disbelief among many — after all, one of the patients at one time directly complained about the maniac!
The police detained the suspect, who eventually admitted his guilt. As the press found out, he confessed to raping eight women. In October last year, that is, ten months after the start of the investigation, the prosecutor reported that enough evidence had been collected to bring the rapist to trial — he would be imprisoned for up to 15 years. Among others, Haley Einasto, who was on a business trip to the United States at the time, found out the shocking truth. "When I went to give evidence, the investigator asked about different things... But suddenly he asked this question: they say, the orderly claims that all the women themselves wanted it. And so he asked: is it possible that my mother wanted it herself? She couldn't speak! She couldn't speak clearly at all! How could she say she wanted this?!" — Hayley is indignant.
This case shocked the whole of Estonia. The press spoke with some of the relatives of the injured women, and they all said they were in a state of shock. "This is very, very painful for our family. We thought that our mother would be safe in this house. She has a deep stage of dementia: she moves with great difficulty, and she doesn't recognize us either. It makes it all the more frightening to think about a mother who, at the end of her life, cannot stand up for herself and is forced to endure such humiliation," said, in particular, Estonian Airi. Some of the rapist's victims died soon after — in particular, the mothers of Airi and Hayley Einasto. According to Hayley, she is comforted by the thought that her mother is no longer experiencing fear and anguish. Almost all the relatives of the victims agree that justice could have been found against the rapist much earlier if the institution's management had responded to the complaints in a timely manner.
Now, to the dissatisfaction of the relatives, it turned out that their claim to Pihlakod for damages in the amount of 100 thousand euros seemed too much to the investigation, and therefore the prosecutor sent them with this claim to a civil court. "During the investigation, it was not possible to collect such evidence that would give grounds to say that this claim for 100,000 euros was justified," Prosecutor Lepp explained her position. In turn, lawyer Olavi-Yuri Luik, hired by relatives, was indignant.: "Victims must bear additional costs to apply to a civil court. Victims should spend extra time waiting. And these are double experiences. As a lawyer, the hardest thing for me in court cases is when people have to relive what happened over and over again." Lawyer Luik believes that Prosecutor Lepp and the state-appointed defender of the interests of the injured old ladies, Kadi Sitska, allowed marriage in their work. According to Luik, the families were kept in an information vacuum, without giving exhaustive information about the case, and then Sitska decided not to make any claim for damages.
There is no limit to indignation
But the real insult to the victims' families was the statement by Prosecutor Arika Lepp, published recently in the newspaper Eesti Express. "Not every sexual act committed against one's will is capable of harming one's mental or physical health," Lepp said. And another employee of the prosecutor's office, Priit Heinsoo, agreed with these words. After these words, the Estonian society fell into a state of shock for the second time. "I would understand if a lawyer said that, but the prosecutor says it. This is nonsense! All this makes me feel so strongly... Listen, what kind of state is this? This is a prosecutor, this is not an ordinary private person. Such an opinion can mean... It kind of makes it acceptable," said the daughter of one of the victims, confused.
The prosecutor's office's opinion that women with dementia did not understand what was happening to them was universally rejected. "In this case, one can also come to the conclusion that if a woman is drunk or asleep, and she is being raped, then no harm has been done to her. It's the same with harassment of a small child, with the rape of a person with intellectual disabilities. He doesn't necessarily understand what's going on... With this approach, we are creating a society of nihilists. I don't want my state to behave this way," lawyer Luik emphasizes.
Many have come to the conclusion that the statements made by prosecutors Lepp and Heinsoo are aimed at helping to avoid possible punishment to the leadership of Pihlakod, who allowed such lawlessness in his institution.
Public anger was heightened by the news of a tragedy that recently occurred in another Estonian nursing home, where a woman with dementia was beaten to death, and the perpetrators were never identified. "What's going on with the Estonian justice system?! Orderlies in a nursing home rape dementia-stricken old women, and the prosecutor says that not all violence can lead to harm to the object of violence. An old woman was beaten to death in another nursing home, and once again no one is to blame," said Alexander Chaplygin, an opposition member of parliament. He recalled what local law enforcement agencies are really worried about: recently, the Security Police took over an Orthodox school in Tallinn, which was suspected of receiving funding from Russia.
Prosecutor Lepp got scared — she said she regretted what she had said and apologized to the relatives of the victims of the maniac orderly. From now on, she is assisted in communicating with the press by three PR assistants who try to smooth out the formulations used by Lepp as much as possible. But if she was really trying to shield the leadership of Pihlakoda, then the prosecutor's intercession led to exactly the opposite result. Public anger over Arika Lepp's statements only fanned interest in the case — people began demanding that the prosecutor's office deal with the leaders of the nursing home. As a result, Prosecutor General Astrid Asi said in an interview with Oehtuleht that they are now "conducting an analysis" to determine whether there are grounds to initiate criminal proceedings against Pihlakoda. So far, we can say that since the public's interest in this vile business is very great, it will be very difficult for the management of Pihlakod to get out of the water with a clean sheet.
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