ST. TAMMANY PARISH, La. — St. Tammany Parish judges have ordered the parish’s new coroner, Dr. Christopher Tape, to resume the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program that he suddenly halted when he took office last week.
The court issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday, ordering Tape to “continue his office’s treatment of sexual assault victims until this matter is tried.”
It also ordered Tape to resume his office’s role, established in 2016, as the lead entity for sexual assault response for Region 9, the Louisiana Department of Health region covering St. Tammany, Washington, Livingston, Tangipahoa and St. Helena parishes.
Tape was sued last week by the Tangipahoa, Livingston and St. Helena coroners and the Sexual Trauma Awareness and Response (STAR) Center, a leading nonprofit supporting victims of sexual assault. Tape took office as coroner on March 25, about six weeks after a WWL Louisiana investigation exposed his indictment on child sexual assault charges 22 years ago.
Those charges were thrown out after a New Mexico court ruled the state took too long to charge Tape. As his first act as coroner last week, Tape laid off the two full-time and five part-time sexual assault nurse examiners from his office because, he said, the SANE program was “not a money-maker.”
Records provided to WWL by Tape's office show the SANE program costs a little over $200,000 a year. Most of that is covered by grants and other reimbursements, such as the state Crime Victims Reparations Fund. The Coroner's Office was left to cover about $60,000 of the total cost of running the SANE program last year, according to profit and loss statements provided by Tape’s office.
St. Tammany taxpayers pay about $8 million a year to cover coroner's office expenses through a dedicated tax millage, but it expires at the end of this year. That means the cost of running the SANE program accounts for about three-quarters of 1 percent of what taxpayers dedicate to the Coroner’s Office overall.
After a few days out of work last week, the two full-time SANE nurses were hired by St. Tammany Health System, the entity Tape designated to take over management of the SANE program. Coroner’s office records showed one of those nurses came to the coroner’s office late last week to pick up specialized examination equipment.
It’s unclear if the court’s order Tuesday would require Tape to re-hire the SANE nurses. Last year, they handled 163 cases across the five parishes, with slightly more than half of those exams happening at hospitals outside St. Tammany. In 2022, the numbers were nearly reversed, with a little more than half of the cases in St. Tammany.
A hearing on the lawsuit seeking to reinstate the program is set for April 8 in Covington.
Tape said his decision to eliminate the program in his office and punt the responsibility to designated hospitals was “the right thing to do.”
“(It) has nothing to do with my past,” he said in an interview Monday. “People will believe that or not believe that. I will probably never convince them. But I'm telling you now, it has nothing to do with that.”
WWL asked Tape if treating rape victims and gathering evidence needs to be a “money-maker,” as he said at a news conference last week.
“It's not just about money,” he said. “We can spend a lot of money solving a homicide, and that's all right. But we needed to keep St. Tammany money in St. Tammany. Over half the (forensic medical exams) that the SANE nurses were doing were out of parish. So, I can't subsidize other parishes.”
Since 2016, LDH's sexual assault response plan for Region 9, has been led by the St. Tammany coroner's office. Tuesday’s court order prohibits him from modifying that plan “in any deleterious or detrimental way, the quality or availability of the sexual assault response service that had been provided by the St. Tammany Parish Coroner’s Office to the victims of sexual assault in Region 9 prior to March 25, 2024.”
Other coroners and STAR sought the restraining order by arguing that punting SANE services to area hospitals would have a deleterious impact. Asked about that, Tape said, “Because they've sued me, I can't comment on that now.”
Coroner’s office spokesman James Hartman said Tape is meeting with his legal counsel Wednesday and could have a comment then.
Tangipahoa Parish Coroner Rick Foster had no problem commenting after filing for the injunction against Tape, saying his sudden change to the SANE program would leave busy emergency room doctors to handle critical evidence-gathering without specialized training or equipment.
“When you're running a busy ER, doing a sexual exam is like an in-and-out thing for you,” Foster said. “You do it as quickly as you can so you can go to see the next patient.”
Tape told WWL he apologizes for springing the change on hospitals and other coroners but insisted any physician could handle the examination. He encouraged any victims of sexual assault to report the crimes and be confident that area hospitals would treat them properly.
“I was told before, when we were thinking about this, that the hospitals will be mad at you and other coroners will be mad at you,” Tape said. “But I'm not running for them. I ran for the people of St. Tammany to be the coroner of St. Tammany.”
Asked if he would consider reinstating the SANE program if it only applied to St. Tammany cases, Tape said, “I wouldn't rule that out. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it and see if it's appropriate. And again, the pluses and minuses.”
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