Details of criminal allegations against local nurse practitioner emerge

By Linda Cicoira

Images and videos that sexually exploited and abused children were distributed via the internet by an Eastern Shore Rural Health nurse practitioner, a criminal complaint alleged in U.S. District Court in Norfolk Wednesday

Forty-two-year-old Lucas Allen Fussell, of Coastal Boulevard in Onley, was also accused of describing and discussing the intimate parts of two patients from the Onley Medical Center when he corresponded online with an undercover police officer.

One of the patients was a 39-year-old man, the other was a minor, the criminal complaint stated. Fussell also described the sex organs of a man and his young sons, who were also patients, the record stated.

Another suspect, who was not identified, began corresponding with Fussell on Dec. 20. Both are accused of exchanging videos and images that largely depicted the sexual exploitation and rape of prepubescent boys.

An officer communicated with Fussell under the guise of the other suspect, who helped police and was connected to Fussell through an encrypted app., court documents said. Authorities say the nurse practitioner sent explicit materials to an FBI employee on June 22 and June 30.” Fussell also went into detail during the correspondence about measures he took online “to evade detection,” the record stated.

Fussell began working for Rural Health in 2012. His own company, Compassion in Care MMC LLC, is headquartered at his house, records on the Virginia State Corporation Commission website show. That business was started about two years ago.

Witnesses said about 15 FBI officers stormed his house Tuesday morning and arrested Fussell.

The complaint was filed on July 2 and then sealed by Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya, who believed there were “reasonable grounds … that disclosure will result in flight from prosecution.” The documents were visible on the court’s website Wednesday morning.

The records show Fussell as being in custody. Court appearances have not yet been scheduled.

In 2000, Fussell, a native of Georgia, was depicted as an excellent student who scored 1330 on the SAT and earned a spot in the National Honor Society. “I wanted to get away from the life I grew up in – there were a lot of drugs and alcohol,” he told a Georgia newspaper when discussing his future studies. Fussell went on to graduate from UVA and Johns Hopkins University. “I want to help people in a direct way,” he told the newspaper in 2007.

Rural Health officials have not commented on the charge.