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STATE'S DISABLED GET MORE PROTECTION

Record - 10/7/2017

Gov. Chris Christie on Friday signed into law protective measures designed to prevent abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with developmental disabilities.

The bill is known as Stephen Komninos' Law, named after a 22-year-old with intellectual disabilities who died in 2007. Between 2004 and 2007, Komninos suffered 16 separate "substantiated incidents of abuse," according to bill sponsor Sen. Jennifer Beck, R-Monmouth. Komninos was taken by an employee of the South Jersey home he lived in on a trip to 7-Eleven, where he was left unsupervised against medical orders, choked on a bagel and died.

The new law represents several years of work by the Legislature and advocates to increase state oversight of programs for the developmentally disabled. The law sets a range of requirements for the Department of Human Services to follow at group homes and care facilities. They include: the department must make two unannounced visits annually to group homes and apartments to check for abuse or neglect; drug testing of direct care staff members in programs and housing funded by the Division of Developmental Disabilities; increased criminal penalties for failure to report abuse; and increasing the involvement of families of people with disabilities.

Christie signed the law at a Friday afternoon ceremony in Trenton in front of advocates and victims' family members.

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