Florida medical board seeking to revoke license of psychiatrist James Yelton Rossello

April 10, 2013

In early April 2013, a hearing of the Florida Board of Medicine was held in which the Board proposed revoking the license of psychiatrist James A. Yelton Rossello, based on charges filed against him by the state of Florida. On April 8, 2011, the Florida Department of Health issued an administrative complaint against Yelton. The complaint stated that between November 2009 and August 2010, while employed by Corrections Corporation of America, working at the Hernando County Jail, providing mental health treatment to patients incarcerated at Hernando County Jail, Yelton committed or attempted to commit sexual misconduct on four different female patients. The Department’s complaint alleges, among other things, that he requested patients to remove their clothes or expose their breasts to him; inquired of one patient if she would engage in sexual activities with him after her release; engaged in conversation with two patients in which he referred to being faithful to his wife “98% of the time,” which the patients inferred meant he would continuing prescribing to them in exchange for sex; requested one patient meet him at a hotel after her release and sexually assaulted another.