By the Associated Press:

A judge has refused to free an ailing inmate from Kansas who, along with his wife, was convicted of abusing mentally ill patients at their treatment center, including by forcing them to work naked and engage in sexual acts.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten cited the “particularly heinous nature” of the abusive treatment of mentally ill patients in a ruling Tuesday to deny the request from Arlan Dean Kaufman for compassionate release from his 30-year prison sentence because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During their trial, federal prosecutors called the Newton facility Kaufman and his wife operated a “house of horrors kept financially afloat by fraud.”