A Wayne County jury convicted former Detroit nurse Wilfredo Figueroa-Berrios on Sept. 24, 2026, of sexually assaulting a patient at DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital — the first verdict in what prosecutors say could become as many as eight separate criminal trials tied to one of the largest patient-abuse cases a Detroit hospital system has faced in years. Figueroa-Berrios, 47, is accused of assaulting at least 26 women across three Detroit-area locations between 2016 and 2025.
What the jury decided
The trial, which began Sept. 8 in Wayne County Circuit Court, centered on the account of a 26-year-old woman who testified she woke up at Sinai-Grace on Aug. 18, 2025, after passing out while intoxicated. She said Figueroa-Berrios, the nurse assigned to her care, told her she was “pretty” and “sexy,” put his hand on her breast, guided her hand to his genitals, and forced her to perform oral sex — then returned to her room and repeated the acts more than once during her stay.
Jurors weighed five counts tied to that admission. They found Figueroa-Berrios guilty of one count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, and acquitted him of two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct. He has been held without bond since his arrest in October 2025 and is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 23 in Wayne County Circuit Court.
Seven more trials, at least 26 accusers
This trial is one of eight separate criminal cases against Figueroa-Berrios, who worked not only at Sinai-Grace but also at COPE Hegira Health Behavioral Urgent Care in Livonia and, prosecutors allege, assaulted at least one woman inside a portable toilet in Detroit. A Wayne County judge found sufficient evidence in October 2025 to send him to trial on charges spanning years of alleged conduct. Attorneys representing accusers say the number of women who have come forward now stands at 26, with seven criminal cases still pending and Figueroa-Berrios facing the possibility of additional trials well into 2027.
The case has also produced a wave of civil litigation: at least seven lawsuits against DMC Sinai-Grace and its parent company, Tenet Healthcare, and, in November 2025, the first class-action lawsuit alleging the hospital system’s own hiring and oversight failures let Figueroa-Berrios keep working around vulnerable patients for years.
Every nurse reading this knows what a one-to-one assignment with a sedated or intoxicated patient looks like from the outside — it looks like normal care. That’s exactly the vulnerability this case exploited, over and over, at more than one facility, for nine years. The hard question for any hospital isn’t whether one bad actor can slip through a background check once; it’s whether the system around him — chaperone policies for vulnerable or sedated patients, how seriously the first complaint gets taken, whether a termination at one facility ever reaches the next one’s hiring desk — was built to catch a pattern like this before it reached 26 women.
What DMC Sinai-Grace and Tenet say
Responding to the civil suits, Sinai-Grace has said Figueroa-Berrios was not its employee during some of the years covered by the allegations, and that it maintains “rigorous processes” to screen applicants, with no indication of a concern during his hiring. The hospital says that once it became aware of allegations against him, it proactively notified law enforcement, then suspended and ultimately terminated his employment. Attorneys for the accusers dispute that account, arguing in court filings that the hospital system ignored earlier red flags — including what they describe as a documented history of violence and prior sex-abuse allegations — before and during his employment. Sinai-Grace and Tenet have not commented publicly on this week’s verdict.
Figueroa-Berrios’s next criminal trial has not yet been scheduled. His Oct. 23 sentencing hearing will be the first indication of how a Wayne County judge weighs the conviction against the seven cases still ahead.