BOISE, Idaho — Four years after a Boise man died from burns he suffered in a scalding hot bathtub, the man hired to care for him faces jail time and 10 years on probation.
Ada County District Judge Peter Barton on Wednesday sentenced Omar Hamadi, who was arrested in November 2019 on a charge of abuse, exploitation or neglect of a vulnerable adult, in connection with the death of 38-year-old Benjamin Reed. Hamadi, now 27 years old, pleaded guilty to the charge in April of this year.
About a month before Reed’s death in May 2019, Hamadi had been hired to help care for Reed through a Boise-based home healthcare company. Because of advanced Huntington’s disease, Reed needed help with everyday activities like getting dressed, feeding himself and using the bathroom. At Hamadi’s preliminary hearing in January 2020, a police officer testified that video from a home surveillance system showed that Hamadi was forcing Reed to get into the bathtub, and that Reed could be heard crying out in pain. A prosecutor described Hamadi as being “negligent” by not making sure the water was at a safe temperature. Reed died 11 days after the incident while at the burn center in Salt Lake City.
Hamadi’s sentence includes 88 days of discretionary jail time, which must be served by Dec. 21, 2023, plus 10 years of probation. The judge also issued a prison sentence of 10 years, with 3 years fixed, but suspended that sentence. Hamadi will not go to prison if he abides by the terms of his probation.
In the months following Hamadi’s arrest, his trial date was pushed back multiple times when in-person court proceedings were put on hold because of COVID-19. Then, because of his guilty plea, the trial was vacated.
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