A Tulsa County grand jury has charged registered nurse James Edward Beaver, 54, with first-degree rape by instrumentation, alleging he sexually assaulted a patient inside the emergency room at Hillcrest Hospital South. Hillcrest fired Beaver, who worked there on a floating basis, once the allegations surfaced. Tulsa police say they are now trying to determine whether the woman is his only victim.
What the affidavit says
According to the arrest affidavit, the woman went to the Hillcrest Hospital South emergency room last fall and asked for pain medication. She told police that when Beaver, then working as a nurse on her unit, came into her room, he sexually assaulted her. She later told a different nurse what had happened and underwent a sexual assault forensic exam. Tulsa Police Department Special Victims Unit detectives received lab results connecting Beaver to the assault on July 16, 2026, giving them probable cause to seek an arrest warrant.
Beaver was booked into the Tulsa County Jail and has since been charged with one count of first-degree rape by instrumentation — case CF-2026-2916 — in Tulsa County District Court, in a case being prosecuted by District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler’s office. Beaver has not entered a plea. As with anyone charged but not convicted, he is presumed innocent unless and until a court finds otherwise.
A floating nurse, a wider search
Tulsa police say Beaver worked as a nurse across several facilities rather than being assigned to one unit — an arrangement that put him in contact with a larger and more varied group of patients than most staff nurses see in a given month. Investigators have said publicly they are concerned there could be additional victims who haven’t come forward, and are asking anyone with information to contact the department’s Special Victims Unit.
Separately, police confirmed they are looking into a second, uncharged report: a different patient told investigators that Beaver assaulted her at St. Francis Hospital, a different Tulsa hospital system, in 2024. According to that woman’s account, she woke up to find him touching her inappropriately for more than 15 minutes. No charges have been filed in that matter, and it remains under investigation. Nothing about that report has been proven in court, and Beaver has not been charged in connection with it.
The board moves first
Oklahoma’s nursing board didn’t wait for a trial. Citing the seriousness of the indictment’s allegations, the Oklahoma Board of Nursing summarily suspended Beaver’s multi-state nursing license, finding that letting him continue to practice while the case is pending would pose a danger to public health and safety. A summary suspension is an emergency measure the board can impose before any full disciplinary hearing; Beaver can request a hearing to contest it, but until then he cannot practice nursing under his Oklahoma-issued compact license in any of the states that recognize it.
Float status is supposed to be about staffing flexibility, not less oversight of the person providing care. But it does mean a nurse can move through more units, more shifts, and more patients before anyone notices a pattern — which is exactly why Tulsa police are worried there’s more than one victim here. If your facility leans heavily on float pools or per diem staff, it’s worth asking what background-check and complaint-tracking process actually follows a nurse from unit to unit, because at a lot of hospitals the honest answer right now is: not much.