Team Select Home Care Lawsuit: Ring Camera and Criminal Charges

A lawsuit filed against Team Select Home Care on March 30, 2026, in Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas alleges the home health agency negligently hired and failed to supervise a night-shift nurse who was recorded on a home surveillance camera choke-slamming a medically fragile one-year-old girl in her crib. The suit was brought by David and Meredith Nastasi, parents of the child identified in filings as Z.N., and names both Lincoln Healthcare Services LLC, doing business as Team Select Home Care, and the nurse, Cindy Desser.¹

What the Ring Camera Allegedly Captured

On the night of May 25, 2025, the Nastasis were monitoring a Ring camera in their Newtown Square, Delaware County home when they saw Desser, the overnight nurse assigned to their daughter, attack the child. Z.N. was roughly one year old and had spina bifida, pulmonary hypertension, hydrocephalus, and lung hypoplasia. She depended on a ventilator and tracheostomy to breathe.²

According to the complaint, the footage showed Desser repeatedly choking Z.N. and slamming her into the crib with enough force to rattle the crib and knock over medical equipment.¹ The suit also alleges Desser routinely fell asleep during her shifts and slept through audible medical alarms, including alerts triggered when Z.N.’s oxygen saturation dropped below 85%.³

The Claims in the Complaint

Attorneys Jeffrey P. Goodman and Samuel B. Dordick of Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky filed the complaint on behalf of the Nastasi family.¹ It brings several distinct causes of action:

Negligence against Team Select for allegedly failing to conduct an adequate background check on Desser, failing to supervise her, and ignoring warning signs during her shifts.
Negligence against Desser for excessive and unreasonable force and willful disregard for the child’s safety.
Assault and battery against Desser for intentionally causing harmful physical contact with Z.N.
Vicarious liability against Team Select as Desser’s employer under respondeat superior.
Negligent infliction of emotional distress on behalf of David Nastasi, who witnessed the alleged abuse through the surveillance feed.¹

What Team Select Is Accused of Missing

The negligence theory against Team Select turns on how Desser was hired and how she was managed in the Nastasi home. The complaint alleges that before Team Select placed her, Desser had been fired from Bayada Home Health Care for improper treatment of a medically compromised child and had separated from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia on “poor terms.” A reasonable background check, the family argues, would have revealed a “pattern and practice of child abuse.”¹

Once she was placed, the suit says, Desser specifically requested night-shift-only work, which the plaintiffs characterize as an effort to minimize oversight. Team Select assigned her five overnight shifts a week and, according to the complaint, provided little monitoring.¹

The sharpest allegation involves the weeks just before the May 25 incident. The complaint states that Team Select itself contacted the Nastasis about a “lack of data” Desser was recording during her shifts, and that the agency recognized Z.N.’s vital signs were “spiking” and “concerning” while Desser was on duty. Despite those signals, the lawsuit alleges, Team Select neither investigated nor pulled Desser from the assignment.¹³

The Criminal Cases Running Alongside the Suit

Desser faces felony charges in two Pennsylvania counties. In Delaware County, she was arrested on September 19, 2025, on two felony counts of aggravated assault, along with simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and child endangerment, all tied to the Z.N. incident. She was released after posting 10% of $25,000 bail and was scheduled for trial in May 2026.⁴⁵³

The Nastasi complaint and news outlets report that roughly five months after that arrest, Desser was hired by a Bensalem-based agency identified as Dynamic Home Health Care and assigned to a three-year-old girl with complex medical conditions, including a tracheostomy. One condition of her Delaware County bail was reportedly that she not work in nursing while her charges were pending.⁶³

The Bensalem family grew suspicious after the child’s mother found bruises, including a mark on the child’s inner thigh that a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia physician suggested could be a thumbprint. Home surveillance footage dating back to August 2025 allegedly showed Desser smacking and slamming the child, pulling the child’s tracheostomy tube out and delaying its replacement, and sleeping during shifts.³ Desser was arrested on March 25, 2026, and charged in Bucks County with felony endangering the welfare of children.⁷ She did not post $2 million bail and remained held at the Bucks County Correctional Center.⁸ On April 15, 2026, she waived her preliminary hearing, and the court ordered a psychological evaluation with a return date of May 15, 2026.⁶

The Bucks County case does not involve Team Select as an employer; that placement was made by a different agency. The civil complaint against Team Select concerns only the care of Z.N.

Where the Civil Case Stands

As of early April 2026, the Nastasi lawsuit was pending in Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas. Team Select Home Care has not publicly commented on the litigation, and the plaintiffs’ attorneys said their attempts to reach the company were unsuccessful.⁹ Team Select is a Phoenix-based agency that operates in 16 states and focuses on long-term home care for medically complex pediatric and elderly patients.¹⁰

1
Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. TS-Nastasi Complaint
2
Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky Files First Negligence Lawsuit Against Area Nurse
3
Phillyburbs. Bucks County Delco Cindy Desser Medically Fragile Child Nurse Abuse Crime Lawsuit Arrest
4
Patch. Nurse Choke Slammed Baby Newtown Square Then Another Agency Hired Her
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Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. Nurse Charged in Bucks County Child Harm Case Has Pending Assault Case in Delco
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NBC Philadelphia. Bucks County Nurse Accused of Abusing Girl With Disabilities Appears in Court
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People. Nurse Hired to Care for 3-Year-Old Allegedly Caught on Camera Smacking and Slamming Child
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6ABC. Bucks County Nurse Facing Child Abuse Charges Allegedly Harming Medical Condition
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Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky. Nurse Choke Slammed Baby in Newtown Then Another Agency Hired Her Lawsuit
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Home Health Care News. Why Team Select Home Care Shifted to Embrace Long-Term Care