Long-term care facilities may use questionable tactics to prevent juries from hearing about nursing home neglect, according to the United States Supreme Court.
The decision came from the pen of Justice Elena Kagan. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented and Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate in the case.
The owner of Legacy Health Systems, which once operated twenty-seven nursing care facilities in Kentucky and two other states, appeared in a St. Louis courtroom to answer charges that he stole over $650,000 in Medicaid funds.
The 52-year-old Nursing Home owner faces up to 37 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to two counts of health care fraud. According to court documents, the owner repeatedly siphoned funds from the chain of nursing care facilities. Among other items, he allegedly spent $185,000 at strip clubs, wrote $439,000 in checks to himself, and transferred $153,000 to a relative. As the owner stole money, things got so bad at one of the company’s nursing care facilities that the state of Missouri closed one nursing home and moved its 60 residents to other locations.
Lawmakers agreed to release $10.5 million in bond funds to expand facilities in Western Kentucky and hopefully ease the nursing home neglect crisis in and around Bowling Green.
Two individuals will spend the next two years in probation as the result of two separate nursing home abuses cases at two different Owensboro care facilities.
21-year-old Billy Spicer faces multiple criminal charges stemming from nursing home abuse allegations in a Clark County group home.
According to Attorney General Andy Beshear, Mr. Spicer was an overnight caregiver at a facility housing intellectually or developmentally disabled adults. At one point, Mr. Spicer either sealed a resident’s room with duct tape to keep the resident from leaving, or he failed to remove such restraint. A grand jury indicted the man on three counts, and if convicted of all three nursing home abuse charges, Mr. Spicer faces a maximum 15 years in prison. He is currently free after posing a $10,000 bond.
“One of the core missions of my office is to protect Kentucky’s most vulnerable citizens from abuse and exploitation – and to prosecute offenders to the fullest extent of the law,” Mr. Beshear vowed.
Bowling Green Democrat Jody Richards will not be Speaker Pro Tem in the next House session, but he plans to aggressively push the local agenda in Frankfort.
For the first time since Rep. Richards came to the statehouse in 1976, Republicans control the Commonwealth’s House of Representatives. Nevertheless, he believes his “history of treating the minority party fairly” will help propel some projects forwards, such as the proposed Bowling Green veteran’s nursing home. Legislators have already pre-filed two bills on the subject for the upcoming session; Rep. Richards sponsors one and plans to co-sponsor the other one. He wants construction to begin on the facility “as soon as possible.”