

A 38-year-old nurse fired from Legacy Emanuel Medical Center will be in court Thursday morning to face an indictment accusing him of sexually assaulting three women who were seeking treatment at the Portland hospital's emergency room.



Jeffrey Neyle McAllister, who previously worked as a police officer in Beaverton and Seaside, was arrested Wednesday at his Northwest Portland home.



McAllister attacked three patients in private rooms in the ER between last September and this past April, the indictment alleges. The investigation began after a patient came forward in early April, police said.





Jeffrey McAllister

In one case, McAllister is accused of providing an opiate-addicted patient with extra drugs before sexually assaulting her, investigators said.

McAllister faces two counts of first-degree rape, three counts of first-degree sex abuse, four counts of first-degree sodomy and one count each of second-degree sex abuse and third-degree sex abuse.

As of Wednesday, the Oregon State Board of Nursing had not taken disciplinary action against McAllister, said Barbara Holtry, a spokeswoman.

In fact, the state board had renewed McAllister's nursing license on April 18 for two more years while he was under investigation by Portland police, state records show. An investigator from the board assisted Portland police in the McAllister inquiry, but it's not clear when she got involved, and Holtry would not say.

If a licensee meets the hours required for the nursing practice, pays the fees and no criminal charges show up on a check of the state law enforcement database, then the board would renew the license, Holtry said.

"Certainly something hitting the newspaper or someone being arrested would show up on our radar, and we'd open up an investigation," Holtry said.

A state board investigation into a registered nurse could result in discipline, ranging from a reprimand to revokation of a license, Holtry said.

After the initial complaint in April, investigators identified additional victims, police said.

"There might be more women out there who might have been afraid to report it," said Sgt. Pete Simpson, a Police Bureau spokesman. "The victims he chose were people who maybe wouldn't be the most believable perhaps because of their lifestyle or addiction issues."

McAllister worked at Legacy Emanuel as an ER technician from 2005 to 2008 and as a registered nurse in the emergency room from 2008 until April. He was fired in April, said Amber Shoebridge, a hospital spokeswoman.

McAllister also worked part time at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland and Mid-Columbia Medical Center in The Dalles.

McAllister worked by contract as an on-call nurse in the emergency room at St. Vincent from November 2009 until he applied for a full-time nursing job and was hired April 8, said Lisa Helderop, a St. Vincent spokeswoman.

On April 10, the hospital learned of the allegations at Legacy Emanuel and immediately placed McAllister on paid administrative leave, Helderop said. McAllister, because of his shifts, did not work at St. Vincent from April 8-10, and St. Vincent has not received any complaints about him, she said.

Police alerted Mid-Columbia Medical Center on June 5 that McAllister was under investigation, said Richard Baltus, a hospital spokesman. But investigators asked that the hospital keep the matter confidential and not alert McAllister, Baltus said.

Mid-Columbia did not schedule nursing shifts for McAllister after that, but a week later, the hospital suspended McAllister based on the investigation, he said.

Baltus confirmed that McAllister is a brother of Mark McAllister, a urologist at Mid-Columbia. Marc McAllister is expected to be called as a witness by attorneys for a Mid-Columbia patient who had complained to him, her surgeon, in February 2011 that an anesthesiologist had forced her to touch him sexually during surgery. The case is scheduled for trial in October.

Jeffrey McAllister also had worked security for Legacy Health System from 2004 to 2005. He was a Beaverton police officer from October 2002 until April 2004 when he resigned before completing probation, said Beaverton Detective Sgt. Jim Shumway. McAllister was a Seaside police officer from 1996 to 2002 and a reserve officer for the Independence Police Department in 1997.

McCallister is being held in the Multnomah County Jail in lieu of $2.26 million bail.

-- Maxine Bernstein

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