BOSTON (WHDH) - A Boston man was in court Monday, accused of raping another patient while admitted to the Boston Medical Center (BMC) emergency room in September 2025, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
Barry Howze, 55, was arraigned in Suffolk District Court. He is charged with two counts of rape, one count of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14, one count of assault and battery on a person with a disability, and one count of witness intimidation. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Prosecutors said Howze was admitted to the BMC emergency room for psychiatric care in September.
They claim he was left unsupervised, and they accuse him of going into another patient’s room, who had partial paralysis. They said Howze crawled under her hospital bed and assaulted her in the late evening of September 13 into September 14, 2025.
“He then sat down on a chair next to her. He took the call button out of her hand and placed it on the ground out of her reach and said something to the effect of, ‘If they find me, they’ll find you,’ while making a shushing motion with his finger over his mouth,” said Kate Fraiman, the Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney. “Due to her partial paralysis, she could not reach her phone which was under her body at the time.
Prosecutors said Howze left when a nuse saw him under the bed, and the victim said she felt unsafe.
Fraiman said the two patients did not know each other.
Howze was then recognized by hospital security two days later when he tried to get a visitor’s pass.
“This assault was brutal and brazen and occurred in a place where people go for help, to be fixed, healed, cared for,” said Fraiman.
Howze’s defense attorney claims his client has schizophrenia and should not have been left alone.
“I don’t want to blame anybody, but this is serious negligence…letting this man, in his condition, to wander, that should not have happened,” said Thomas Glynn, Howze’s Defense Attorney.
The judge said Howze poses a “danger to the public” and ordered him held without bail. He is due back in court in February.
7NEWS has reached out to BMC for comment, but has not yet heard back.
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