Former Boston Children’s nurse assaulted patients coming out of anesthesia, prosecutors say

A former nurse at Boston Children’s Hospital who allegedly sexually assaulted two teenage boys in his care was indicted earlier this month and arraigned Monday in Suffolk Superior Court. 

Prosecutors are asking any parents whose children may have encountered the nurse, 33-year-old John Tam of Hopedale, to contact authorities if they suspect their child may have been assaulted. 

Before working at Boston Children’s, Tam was employed at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, and UMass Memorial Medical Center in Marlborough. 

“We are concerned that these may not be isolated incidents and we want to assure parents that any information they provide will be thoroughly and sensitively investigated,” Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement.

Tam specifically waited until his victims were emerging from anesthesia in the hopes that they would not remember or notice the assaults, Assistant District Attorney Madeline Berry said in court Monday. She called his alleged actions “cowardly, heinous acts.” 

The first alleged assault occurred on Sept. 19, 2022. The patient, who was 15 at the time, underwent surgery on his chest to remove portions of a mass. Doctors wanted to perform a biopsy to determine if his cancer had returned. He was given anesthesia and was unconscious for the surgery. He awoke to find Tam “inappropriately touching his penis,” according to prosecutors. 

The victim responded by saying “don’t touch me down there.” Prosecutors noted in court documents that he was given catheters during the surgery, but they were located in his arm, not his penis. 

The second alleged assault occurred on Jan. 2, 2025 after a 16-year-old patient was anesthetized and made unconscious for a surgery at Boston Children’s. The surgery was completed without issue, and the patient was moved to a recovery room. He was awoken, and Tam provided discharge instructions to the teen and his mother. These instructions specifically prohibited sexual activity of any kind, prosecutors noted in court documents. 

Tam sent the patient’s mother to the parking garage in order to get her car. She was to wait downstairs at the Hale Building while Tam got the patient dressed and ready to go home, prosecutors said. 

As the patient’s mother waited, Tam allegedly got the teen into a wheelchair and rolled him into a public, single-stall bathroom. The patient had not indicated that he needed to use the bathroom. Tam locked the door from the inside and sexually assaulted him, according to prosecutors.

The alleged assault lasted for about eight minutes. Tam then wheeled the victim out of the bathroom and to his mother, waiting in the car outside. The teenager told his mother what happened, and she immediately alerted hospital staff, according to prosecutors. 

“These boys were assaulted and taken advantage of in their most vulnerable states with their parents out of sight,” Berry said. “Boston Children’s Hospital is supposed to be a place where members of the public can trust to ensure that their children’s safety is the utmost priority. The defendant has instilled fear in the community with the allegations against him today.”

Boston Children’s has been “fully cooperative” with the investigation into Tam, Hayden said. 

Tam faces eight charges of indecent assault and battery. He pleaded not guilty to all charges. Tam was released on personal recognizance Monday. He was ordered to surrender his passport, to stay away from the alleged victims and witnesses, to remain in Massachusetts, to not work in healthcare, and to not have any unsupervised contact with children under the age of 18, according to court records. He will return to court on Sept. 18. 

Tam was charged with indecent assault and battery of a person over the age of 14 in Roxbury District Court last year. This resulted in a hung jury. Tam’s attorney, Joseph Cataldo, argued Monday that Hayden’s office obtained indictments in Superior Court “to put pressure on Mr. Tam because he wanted to effectuate his right to have a jury trial again in Roxbury.”

In addition to the alleged incidents in Suffolk County, Tam was charged with indecent assault and battery of a person over the age of 14 in Marlborough District Court last year. That assault occurred while Tam was working at UMass Marlborough, and the victim was “in a very similar position” to the victims in Suffolk County, Berry said during the arraignment Monday. 

“The nature and circumstances of these sorts of allegations are always hidden, they are insidious — they often don’t come to surface for a period of time,” Hayden said after the arraignment.