Ex-town official sentenced for molesting patient

A longtime Bedminster Township supervisor was sentenced yesterday to two to four years in Bucks County prison for sexually assaulting a mentally impaired 92-year-old woman.

Robert Holland, 77, had admitted fondling the woman in her room May 5 at the Pine Run Health Center in Doylestown, where he worked as a grounds crew supervisor.

Despite pleading guilty in December to aggravated indecent assault and other charges, he insisted the acts inside the nursing facility were consensual. Psychological assessments read in court suggested he had no remorse.

"She told me she enjoyed being touched, she enjoyed being hugged, she enjoyed a kiss...," Holland told Bucks County Court Judge Albert J. Cepparulo. "She always thanked me."

Cepparulo, however, said the victim, who died in June, had been incapable of giving consent. In 2004, she had been diagnosed with advanced, Alzheimer's-like dementia, and lived in a section of Pine Run reserved ...