A Brooklyn hospital patient has filed a lawsuit against the owners of Brookdale Hospital, alleging a male nurse drugged and molested her during an overnight shift late last year.     This isn’t the first time the nurse has been accused of improper touching. “I was assaulted,” said the female patient. “He groped my breasts. He groped my lower body. He stuck his fingers in other places.” NBC New York is not identifying the patient because of the sensitive nature of her allegations. According to her lawsuit, filed this week, the alleged sexual abuse took place on the night of December 5, 2025, while she was inside Brookdale Hospital receiving treatment for an autoimmune disorder. On that overnight shift, the suit says a nurse named Kuriakose Poulose administered an IV drug that physically paralyzed the patient. “After injecting Plaintiff with the drug that caused her to become incapacitated,” the lawsuit reads, “Defendant Poulose then began rubbing and fondling Plaintiff’s exposed body, including her breasts and vagina, with ungloved hands.” Poulose did not answer when the I-Team knocked on the door of his Long Island home. The I-Team was unable to reach him by phone, and his attorney did not return a request for comment. In the patient’s medical chart, Poulose wrote that she’d become “verbally abusive,” and began “yelling, shouting, and loudly craving” higher doses of painkillers around 10 p.m., about an hour before she alleged the sexual abuse took place.”  But the lawsuit accuses Poulose of “backdating” that notation the following morning, an effort it says to discredit the patient before she was able to report the incident to police. A spokesperson for One Brooklyn Health, the owner of Brookdale Hospital, said the hospital could not comment on the incident because it involved an open criminal investigation.  According to the NYPD, on the morning of December 6, 2025, a female patient reported to a responding officer that she’d been sexually abused by an individual inside the hospital the prior night around 11 p.m.  “NYPD investigators continue to work with Brookdale Hospital regarding this incident,” a police spokesperson wrote to the I-Team, adding that no arrests have been made. Now, more than seven months later, the Brooklyn patient is suing the hospital, arguing it was negligent to give Poulose access to patients because a search of his nursing record in neighboring New Jersey would have revealed he had been the subject of prior improper touching allegations there. “He should have no type of license at all,” the woman said. “He should never have gotten hired.” In March of 2025, the NJ Board of Nursing reprimanded Poulose in a “Consent order of Discipline,” which concluded he committed professional misconduct by failing to disclose three incidents in which he was accused of groping women in 2020 and 2021. Two of the improper touching allegations came from patients; one came from a co-worker. Poulose denied the allegations, but he was ordered to attend a monitoring program because state policy requires nurses to report incidents involving “boundary violations.” Nicholas Liakas, the attorney who represents the Brooklyn patient, said Brookdale Hospital should proactively notify all patients who have come into contact with Poulose, in light of his record of allegations in two states. “He’s had prior issues well in the past that they should have known about,” Liakas said. “That’s why we want to get this story out, so that other victims know that you’re not just hallucinating. You’re not dreaming. If this has happened to you, if you’re suspicious that this has happened to you, you need to speak up.” Administrators for Brookdale Hospital declined to discuss their background check process or whether the medical facility does periodic checks of NURSYS, a national database that compiles disciplinary actions against nurses in states across the country. As of June 25, 2026, Kuriakose Poulose’s New Jersey nursing license was listed as “inactive” with a record of Board Action. Meanwhile, his New York State nursing license was listed as “active” with “no enforcement actions.” New York’s Department of Education Office of the Professions, which administers nursing licenses, said state law prohibits the office from commenting on any specific allegation of misconduct. The office did confirm that regulators in Albany receive notifications from NURSYS about licensees with out-of-state disciplinary findings. However, reviews of those disciplinary actions generally take place during the re-registration process. Kuriakose Poulose’s New York nursing license is listed as registered through March 2028. New York, unlike New Jersey and most other states, is not part of the Nursing License Compact (NLC), an inter-state agreement that promotes information sharing and allows a nurse licensed in one member state to practice in other member states without applying for dozens of individual licenses. Dawn Kappel, a spokesperson for the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, said nursing licenses can be restricted based on investigations that took place in other states, even if the states don’t share membership in the NLC. “A state Board of Nursing generally has the authority to take action against a licensee on the basis of another state’s licensure disciplinary action that implicates the individual’s ongoing ability and likelihood to practice professionally and safely when that disciplined violation constitutes a violation in that state as well,” Kappel wrote to the I-Team. ...read more read less