Trial begins in suspected date drugging
In a case that drew national praise for a Ruby Tuesday waiter, a former Florence City Council member and state mental hospital clinician went on trial Monday for allegedly spiking a date's drink with a tranquilizer.
Robert Lawrence Psaty faces up to six years in prison if convicted of felony charges of assault by drugging a victim and attempting to have someone induce a controlled substance by fraudulent means.
Jury selection began Monday and opening statements could begin Tuesday.
Psaty, 57, and Nancy McGrath were on a date at the Ruby Tuesday restaurant on Garden of the Gods Road Jan. 3, 2008, after meeting on an online dating service Web site.
According to an arrest affidavit by Colorado Springs police, a waiter saw Psaty drop a pill into McGrath's drink when she stepped away to go to the salad bar. The waiter, Colt Haugen, 22, a student at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, took the drink, replaced it with a new one, and called police.
"I was helping another server deliver food to a different table," Haugen said during an appearance last year on CBS News. "And she got up from the table, and I noticed it was the only time she got up from the table. She walked away. And as soon as she turned her back, he pulled a pill out of his pocket and put it in her drink and stirred it in and mashed it in with a straw.
"I talked with the manager. I told her, I said, ‘I saw this plain as day. And if we don't do something about this, something's going to happen to this woman.' So, we both just agreed that, no matter what the consequences were, we were going to do what was right."
Investigators found the drink contained the anxiety-relieving drug Diazepam, commonly known as Valium.
"I don't know what his intentions were that night," McGrath said last year. "But he preyed on me."
Psaty was able to pass a background check when applying for a job at the state hospital because he received deferred sentences for two previous convictions.
According to court records, Psaty was accused of assaulting a prison nurse in 1993 while he was a lieutenant at the Centennial Correctional Facility in Cañon City. He was charged with false imprisonment, harassment and third-degree assault after the nurse accused him of locking her up, threatening her with a stun gun and grabbing her blouse and looking inside.
He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in 1994 and received a deferred sentence.
The Department of Human Services rejects applicants if they are convicted of violent crimes and felony offenses involving sexual behavior or child abuse or violate a protection order.
Because a deferred sentence is expunged from an offender's record if the person successfully completes terms and conditions set by the court, no red flags would have come up in 2004 when Psaty applied for a job at the state hospital.
In 2002, Psaty was accused of criminal mischief. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in that case and received another deferred sentence.
Psaty was placed on paid administrative leave Feb. 14, 2008, the day he was arrested on suspicion of trying to drug McGrath.
He has pleaded not guilty and remains free on $3,000 bail.
