Respiratory therapist pleads guilty to molesting brain-damaged kids at San Diego hospital

A former respiratory therapist pleaded guilty Tuesday to molesting young, brain-damaged patients at the hospital where he worked for 25 years.

Wayne Albert Bleyle, 55, admitted to eight counts of forcible lewd acts upon a child and four counts of exhibiting a minor in pornography.

Under a plea agreement, Bleyle would serve 45 years and eight months in prison. With credit for good behavior, he would serve at least 85 percent of that sentence. He had faced a sentence of up to 165 years if he had been convicted in a trial.

Bleyle, who worked at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego, appeared gaunt and pallid in a loose-fitting navy suit. He answered procedural questions in a firm, quiet voice.

Bleyle admitted abusing four of his patients, including a 2-year-old girl. Two of the children have since died, according to prosecutors.

Superior Court Judge Kenneth So denied bail and scheduled sentencing for July 25.

Bleyle was arrested in March 2006 after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents traced child porn Internet traffic to his home computer in suburban Santee. Prosecutor Laura Gunn told a judge then that Bleyle targeted children who were "the most brain-damaged, most comatose, most nonverbal _ children who could never say anything about it."

Bleyle confessed to federal agents that he molested "countless" disabled patients, the prosecutor told the court last year.

"One of the agents who interviewed him said, 'How many kids are we talking about?'" Gunn said. "The defendant, who was in New York at the time looking out at the snow, looked out at the snow and said, 'How many snowflakes are there out there?'"

Prosecutors accepted the plea in part to spare one girl, a teenage stroke victim, from testifying before a jury, Gunn said. The girl said in preliminary hearings last year that Bleyle touched her buttocks three years ago while she was in a convalescent ward.

"This is absolutely one of the worst child molestation situations imaginable," Gunn told reporters outside the courtroom.

Bleyle's attorney, Casey Donovan, declined to comment after the hearing.

Bleyle worked at the well-regarded hospital for 25 years, including 10 at the convalescent facility. Former colleagues have described him as an engaging, hardworking therapist who volunteered for extra shifts, reassured parents and served as a mentor to new hires.

Affidavits filed in support of search warrants indicate that investigators found images on Bleyle's computer and cell phone that he had created himself using children at the hospital. His arrest prompted the hospital to ban camera phones in the convalescent unit and require that curtains around patients be left open most of the time.

Barely a month after Bleyle's arrest, another hospital employee was charged with molesting a comatose toddler patient after being traced through Internet file-sharing networks. Christopher Alan Irvin, a 32-year-old nurse at the time, pleaded guilty in September and was sentenced to 14 years and eight months in prison.

More than 10,000 sexual predators have been arrested in the four years since ICE began tracing child pornography trafficked on the Web, according to press officer Lauren Mack.