The owner of seven Louisiana nursing homes, who sent more than 800 residents to a dirty warehouse lacking toilets and proper medicine last year when Hurricane Ida hit the region, was arrested on Wednesday on charges of fraud and cruelty, authorities said.
The man, 68-year-old Bob Glyn Dean Jr., was out of state when he ordered the evacuation of residents of the Baton Rouge, Louisiana nursing home, on August 26, 2021, telling staff members to move everyone to a warehouse in Independence called the facility Waterbury, where they were preparing for a difficult time, according to an affidavit.
There, the residents of the nursing homes were subjected to overcrowding, the smell of urine and feces, piles of garbage, except puddles of water and inadequate portions of food, according to the oath declaration. Seven nursing homes have died, according to the Louisiana Department of Health, which has revoked Mr. Dean’s seven licenses to operate as nursing homes. While authorities were trying to find out what had happened, Mr Dean refused to cooperate and ordered his staff to do the same, according to the arrest warrant.
Mr Dean, who was banned by the Department of Health and Human Services from participating in federal health programs in May, was charged Wednesday with eight counts of cruelty to people with disabilities, five counts of fraud with Medicaid and two counts of fraud. obstruction of justice, according to the office of Attorney General Jeff Landry of Louisiana. Cruelty to people with disabilities, the most serious of the charges, carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $ 10,000 fine.
Mr Dean “refused to relocate its occupants from Hurricane Ida, charged Medicaid for dates in which its residents did not receive adequate care, and engaged in conduct designed to intimidate or obstruct public health and law enforcement officials.” “Mr Landry’s office said in a statement.
Mr. Dean’s lawyer, John McLindon, said by telephone Wednesday that his client, who had to be released on $ 350,000 bail, “desperately tried to return to Louisiana” to help approach Hurricane Ida.
“I’m just not sure how they can accuse him of cruelty to the weak when he’s not even there,” he said. He added that Mr Dean’s mental health was in decline.
The allegations came nearly 10 months after Hurricane Ida devastated the state, turning it into an intense Category 4 storm that left the power grid in ruins and millions without electricity for days, including in New Orleans.
By August 28, the day before the storm, most of the 827 nursing home residents in the seven nursing homes had been evacuated to the Waterbury Facility and divided between its three main buildings, according to an affidavit.
Longtime residents told The New York Times last year that the warehouse was once used as a sock factory and was later used to make aerosol cans before it darkened, although they said still sometimes used to store emergency supplies.
Mr Dean ordered the occupants of the metal building to move to the concrete one, as he thought it was safer, and the occupants of a slag building were later asked to do the same, according to the affidavit.
“This transfer of patients has led to extremely overcrowded conditions in the larger concrete building, which has significantly affected the care that staff could provide to residents,” the affidavit said.
Waterbury soon lost power and its emergency generator went out periodically, which further negatively affected employees and residents, according to the affidavit. On August 30, the Louisiana Department of Health sent inspectors to the warehouse.
They saw people crowded on mattresses that were placed too close together, occupants “in various stages of undressing”, including some with T-shirts and soiled diapers or completely naked, and a kitchen area that was next to the portable toilets in the building, in who had one inch of water is stated in the oath declaration.
Inspectors also reported “problems with infection control, piles of dirty bed linen and rubbish and neglect of residents and staff,” according to the affidavit.
An inspector of health from the Louisiana Department tried to call Mr. Dean on Aug. 30 to discuss deteriorating conditions, but he replied in swear words that he did not want to talk to them.
When the inspector received the vulgar texts, she replied, “Hello, Mr. Dean, did you intend to send these messages to someone else?”
“No, I didn’t,” Mr. Dean said, using swear words later in the text. He added: “Do you realize that you are in conspiracy theory with the federal government?”
A day later, more inspectors went to the warehouse and saw more evidence of deteriorating conditions.
An employee of the Louisiana Department of Health, who was inside the warehouse, said nursing home staff were running around “like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to take care of these people,” the affidavit said.
Residents have not been properly cleaned, given small portions of food and have not been provided with medical options that were medically necessary, such as eating for diabetics, according to the affidavit.
Mr Dean, authorities said, had ordered his staff not to relocate residents to alternative shelters “for fear of losing residents to other facilities”.
Last year, Mr Dean suggested in an interview with the WAFB in Baton Rouge that the number of deaths was not atypical.
“We’ve only had five deaths in six days, and usually with 850 people, you’ll have several a day,” he said. “So we did a very good job of caring for people.”
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