Former nursing home worker guilty of punching, body-slamming elderly in Southern Calif.

Ex-Calif. worker guilty of torturing elderly

LOS ANGELES — A former nursing home worker accused of body-slamming a 78-year-old woman has been found guilty of torturing and abusing residents.

Twenty-one-year-old Cesar Ulloa was convicted Thursday in Los Angeles of seven counts of elder abuse and a count of torture that carries a potential life sentence.

The Reseda man was accused of attacking patients at Silverado Senior Living, a Calabasas facility where fees run $70,000 a year or more.

At Ulloa’s trial, other workers testified that they saw him punch and knee patients and encourage two men in wheelchairs to fight.

Ulloa came under suspicion after a patient who died in 2007 was found to have broken bones.

His attorney denied that Ulloa abused patients and said any injuries were accidental.