Former Iowa lawmaker charged with sex abuse of wife with dementia

[TexasTowelie]

This Aug. 15 2014 photo provided by the Hancock County Sheriff's Department shows Henry Rayhons. The nursing home staff caring for Rayhons' wife, Donna Lou Rayhons, told the former Iowa lawmaker that his wife of seven years was no longer mentally capable of legally consenting to have sex. Prosecutors say that Rayhons did not get the message. Today, he is preparing to stand trial for sexually assaulting his wife, who died last August, days before he was formally charged. (AP Photo/Hancock County Sheriff's Department via The Globe Gazette)

GARNER, Iowa (AP) — A former Iowa lawmaker accused of sexually abusing his wife who suffered from dementia says their relationship never centered on sex, according to an interview with investigators that aired during his trial Wednesday.

In the two-hour interview, Henry Rayhons explained how he met his wife and described their relationship to Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation Agent Scott Reger. Rayhons, 78, is on trial for a third-degree sexual abuse charge.

Prosecutors allege Rayhons had sex with his wife, Donna Lou Rayhons, on May 23 at a Garner, Iowa nursing home even though he had been told that his wife was no longer mentally capable of consenting due to dementia caused by Alzheimer's disease. She died in August.

Many older couples experience the hardships of illness, mental decline and living apart, but what happened with the Rayhons has little precedent. The crux of the case is the question of Donna Lou Rayhons' ability to consent. Iowa law defines an act as sexual abuse in the third degree if the two parties are not living together as husband and wife and if one person "is suffering from a mental defect or incapacity which precludes giving consent."

Read more: http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2015-04-15/former-iowa-lawmaker-charged-sex-abuse-wife-suffering-dementia

[font color=green]Yes, he is a Republican.[/font]

[No Vested Interest]

1. Interesting case. Dr. Drew (HLN) and a panel on his program have been speaking about this

on several occasions.

It seems the wife had daughters who objected to the husband's actions, and he had either been "requested: or "told" not to have sex with his wife.

Dr. Drew believes that it is not wrong for the husband to have sex with his incapacitated wife, assuming that was a part of their regular life until her until she was in nursing care. Dr. Drew says that dementia patients can and should still have pleasure in the moment, in fact, that may be all they have.

I don't think we can know definitively if marital coitus was appropriate in this instance, but assuming the wife was not injured physically by the experience, and considering that the wife is now deceased, my opinion is to give the husband the benefit of the doubt and dismiss the case.

[Nitram]

2. Vested, I agree.

Well put.