A former AtlantiCare nurse facing several criminal charges for threatening a 10-year-old psychiatric patient and assaulting him with a syringe has been given pretrial intervention.
Naomi Derrick, now 43, agreed to a temporary suspension of her nursing license in 2016, after a criminal investigation began into the allegations.
At that time, it was alleged that in a series of incidents May 15, 2016, she used a needle to threaten and hurt the boy, drawing droplets of blood each time she struck him in the upper arm, thigh, kneecaps, foot and hand.
Derrick also attempted to force the boy to follow her orders by stepping on his bare foot with her shoe, forcing him to fall by repeatedly shoving a chair he was holding onto, and bending his pinky finger back until a crack was heard, according to court documents, which said all of the incidents were either caught on video surveillance or witnessed by someone else.
Derrick was fired the next day. She agreed to a temporary license suspension that summer.
A press release by the Attorney General's Office announcing that suspension said the boy was autistic.
The criminal investigation continued, and on Aug. 22, 2017, six charges were filed against her, including two second-degree counts of aggravated assault, along with possession of a weapon (the syringe) for an unlawful purpose, according to the complaint obtained by BreakingAC.
That November, a grand jury indicted her on all six counts.
She was rejected for the pretrial intervention program — or PTI — in January 2018, but was cleared for it Dec. 24, 2018, citing prosecutor decision, court records show.
PTI allows someone to avoid prosecution by completing a program.
Derrick’s attorney, Brian Reagan, did not return repeated attempts for comment.
A decision on Derrick's license, which remains under the temporary suspension, was set to go before the Office of Administrative Law last Wednesday, but did not happen due to snow, a spokeswoman for the Division of Consumer Affairs said.
A new date has not yet been announced.
