Molester gets work release, probation

Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 9, 2005 at midnight

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GOLDEN - A former hospice nurse who molested a terminally ill 10-year-old girl in his care several years ago apologized to the family of the child before he was sentenced Thursday.

"To the family of Laura Ward . . . I apologize," said James Ernest Philpott. "I will hear Laura's mother's words in my head for the rest of my life. I pray to God for forgiveness."

Philpott, 55, was sentenced to 16 years to life for one count of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust.

But visiting Judge Frank Plaut immediately suspended the sentence, ordering that Philpott be placed on 20 years of supervised probation and that he serve two years in jail on work release.

"One slip on one incident, if this comes to the attention to the court, that means you are put in prison for 16 years to the rest of your natural life," Plaut warned Philpott on Thursday, adding that he was imposing a "zero-tolerance" sentence.

Philpott was arrested last year after he told co-workers he had had sex with a 10-year-old girl and an 89-year-old woman. During a phone conversation with a co-worker, he allegedly said the girl "was fun but the (elderly woman) was funner."

He later told police he had sexually assaulted the girl because he wanted her to feel pleasure before she died, and admitted to molesting her three times.

Charges against Philpott in the sexual assault of the elderly woman were not pursued because the woman suffered from dementia and prosecutors didn't believe they had sufficient evidence to prove their case.

Philpott pleaded guilty to the one count of sexual assault on a child in October.

Thursday, the girl's family wanted the court to know how Philpott's actions affected their lives.

"We find our memories of Laura are tainted with questions," said Janel Ward, the girl's mother, who broke into tears.

She said that her daughter was diagnosed with nonketotic hyperglycemia, which made her prone to seizures when excited.

She was also cortically blind and deaf, which meant that her mind couldn't process the information that her eyes and ears were receiving, but she was far from comatose.

"She could smile, blow kisses, and roll on her side," said her mother.

But Philpott had his defenders.

Tom Tilton, a longtime friend, testified that he worked with Philpott in the 1970s at Craig Hospital.

"I witnessed his giving love to every patient that he treated there," he said. "He's a good man."

But prosecutor Steve Jensen noted that Philpott had a darker side, a man who had a 20-year history of making obscene phone calls, who had sex with numerous prostitutes and strangers, owned more than 700 pornographic movies, and stored child pornography images on his computer. "The (prognosis) for the defendant's success is far from rosy," Jensen said.

But Dan Katz, Philpott's attorney, noted that several evaluations of his client as a sexual offender showed he had a low to moderate chance of recidivism, and that until recently, had no criminal record.

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