Judge Orders State Agency to Hand Over DaVita Report

LUFKIN — With less than two weeks before jury selection in the capital murder trial of a former Lufkin dialysis nurse accused in the bleach injection deaths of five patients, an Angelina County judge ordered a state health agency to release a report of the nurse’s then-employer, DaVita Dialysis. That report comes from KETK and the Lufkin Daily News.

Since her 2008 arrest, defense attorney Ryan Deaton has maintained that DaVita is using his client, Kimberly Saenz, 37, and her eight-month tenure at the clinic as a scapegoat for their mistakes. Those mistakes, including 68 “adverse occurrences,” Deaton said, are detailed in the Texas Department of Health and Human Services report in question. Although the Attorney General’s office tried to prevent Deaton’s access to the report, citing HIPAA violations, state District Judge Barry Bryan ruled the agency must hand over the information, as Saenz’s life is on the line.

“I understand this is a serious case, but I don’t know it trumps patient right of privacy,” said Dennis McKinney, an official with the Attorney General’s Office speaking via telephone to those in the courtroom. “I think it does when the state is seeking death penalty for Ms. Saenz,” Bryan told McKinney. Prosecutor Clyde Herrington asked that the report be made available to the state as well.

Jury selection in the case is set to begin Jan. 23 and is expected to last nearly a month as each member of the 12-panel jury is individually selected. The trial is scheduled to begin March 5 and will likely last three weeks to a month.