A nurse at a Massachusetts psychiatric hospital says she reported being sexually assaulted by a coworker during an overnight shift — and then watched the hospital keep him on staff for roughly nine months while two of his colleagues retaliated against her. She sued the state last week.
The nurse, identified in her own complaint only as “Jane Doe,” worked at Taunton State Hospital, a psychiatric facility run by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health (DMH). Her attorney, Peter S. Farrell of Farrell Law Group, filed suit October 14, 2026 in Plymouth Superior Court (Civil Action No. 2683CV00979), naming DMH, the state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), and three hospital employees as defendants. A judge has agreed to keep her name out of the civil case.
What the lawsuit says happened
According to the complaint, the alleged assault happened during the overnight shift of September 8, 2025. The nurse was resting on the floor of a linen closet on a break — one of the few places on the unit to sit down — when a coworker, recovery treatment worker Mark Green, allegedly came in, kicked her awake, and held his exposed genitals inches from her face. Green was arrested two days later, on September 10, 2025, and charged in Taunton District Court with felony lewdness, indecent assault and battery, and misdemeanor indecent exposure. He has pleaded not guilty, his attorney says Green maintains his innocence, and he has not been convicted.
The lawsuit says this was not the first complaint against Green. It alleges the hospital had received at least one earlier report about him — an incident the hospital reportedly treated as outside its jurisdiction because it happened off-campus — and had suspended him once before without firing him. Green was suspended again the day the new allegations surfaced and placed on unpaid leave within days, but the suit says he remained a DMH employee for roughly nine months before he was terminated in May 2026.
I’ve worked overnight shifts on locked units where the only place to put your feet up for ten minutes was a linen closet, a supply room, or your own car in the parking lot. That’s not a design flaw you can staff away — it’s what happens when a unit runs short, and it’s exactly the kind of space where nobody can see or hear you. What actually bothers me about this case isn’t the criminal charge; the courts will sort that out. It’s the six months it reportedly took the state’s own HR division to confirm two coworkers had retaliated against her, and that one of them, per the complaint, was never moved off her unit. If your facility’s harassment policy has a no-retaliation clause, read it before you need it — and put every report in writing, with a date, even when you trust the person you’re handing it to.
The retaliation claim
The second half of the complaint is about what allegedly happened to the nurse herself. She says two coworkers close to Green — identified in reporting on the suit as Charlene Woods and Patricia Harris — began retaliating against her the following month, October 2025. According to the complaint, it took the Commonwealth’s own Human Resources Division until March 9, 2026, roughly six months later, to substantiate retaliation and other violations of the state’s sexual harassment policy by hospital employees. Even then, the suit says, only one of the two was moved to a different unit; the other, it alleges, never was. The complaint lists sexual harassment, hostile work environment, discrimination, retaliation and intimidation among its claims, and seeks damages of more than $50,000.
A DMH spokesperson said in a statement that “DMH takes employee safety seriously, and all complaints of sexual assault are thoroughly investigated.” Neither DMH nor EOHHS has filed a public response to the lawsuit’s specific allegations. Green’s criminal defense attorney, Joseph Krowski, has said Green maintains his innocence and called the civil suit money-motivated; the two coworkers have not commented publicly. No hearing date had been reported as of this writing.