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2021 was a profitable year for Bob Dean.
After years of lavish living in Louisiana’s lowest rated nursing home, Dean is now trying to sell his remaining seven homes for $70 million.
But the sale, like some of Dean’s patients, fell victim to Hurricane Ida.
After seeing 843 residents suffering after being evacuated to ill-equipped warehouses without adequate toilets, showers and air conditioning, state health officials closed the warehouses and sent patients elsewhere. It started to move.
Ordering millions of dollars wiped from his nursing home bank account, Dean acted quickly to save what he could from his crumbling empire.
While his residents and their relatives have talked about losing loved ones and recounting the horrors of warehouses, Dean has spent nearly $2 million on firearms, antiques, luxury cars, and his family’s payday. rice field.
Those allegations were highlighted in a lawsuit filed last week by the U.S. Department of Justice, which says Dean misused $4 million allocated to four nursing homes in federally-backed loans.
According to the lawsuit, in the years before the storm, Dean pocketed more than $1 million that the nursing home paid as “rent” for its warehouse instead of using it to prepare for the influx of elderly and disabled residents. I just put it in.
Under the terms of the loan, Dean is to spend property and income from the nursing home on improving those homes, and is not allowed to withdraw money from any portion of those accounts without U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development approval. could not. Suit said.
The lawsuit seeks double the $4 million the federal government says Dean wasted. They filed a civil suit against him in the Central District of Louisiana, but some say the allegation could lead to federal criminal charges.
Former New Orleans federal prosecutor Sean Clark says Dean allegedly pocketed rent payments and emptied accounts at a nursing home after the state and his lenders tried to stop him. claimed.
“Anyone of these series of allegations, if proven, would support accusations of wire fraud, medical fraud, false statements to federal agencies, and money laundering,” Clark said. Dean’s nagging message to reluctant bookkeepers that was included could strengthen the lawsuit, he said.
Dean faces state criminal charges for cruelty to the vulnerable and Medicaid fraud, but he has pleaded not guilty.The office of Attorney General Jeff Landry is handling the case.
The federal lawsuit came after hundreds of other people took aim at Dean’s remaining property, leaving it nearly empty.
A Jefferson Parish judge recently approved a plan to distribute $12.5 million in insurance benefits to Dean’s former nursing home residents. The distribution hasn’t started yet, but presumably he’ll be around $10,000 per person.
His lawyers filed in court that Dean was suffering from dementia, owed $40 million, and had nothing left to use.
Lawyer Don Massey, who represented many of Dean’s former nursing home residents, said the government would be first in line to recover money from Dean. is behind
Massey said the conflicting claims underscored how little money was available to victims of Dean’s evacuation.
It is unclear which attorney will represent Dean in the federal lawsuit.The attorney who represented Dean in the class action lawsuit was not involved, he said.
Nursing Homes Flagged as Missing
Dean’s HUD deal dates back to a deal he signed in 2013 for two houses named Maison Deville in Harvey and Houma. HUD’s mortgage insurance required the home to be in good condition and to hold all required licenses.
Dean signed two similar contracts in 2017 for Maison Orleans and West Jefferson Health Care Center.
But long before Dean evacuated his residents, who converted a former pesticide factory in Tanguipahoa Parish, which he purchased for $918,000 in 2015, into a shelter warehouse, his residents lived in squalid conditions.
On the five-star rating scale used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, most of Dean’s homes received one star. The only exception is West Jefferson Health Care Center, which is below average with 2 stars.
Dean’s residents were prescribed antipsychotics at an unusually high rate, and the homes they lived in were dangerously understaffed. According to data collected by ProPublica, Dean’s nursing home typically had 35 citations of her from inspectors. That’s about three times more than a typical nursing home in Louisiana and twice her national average.
Dean, on the other hand, had made a habit of pocketing money that could help him improve his home or prepare a warehouse, the complaint said. According to the federal government, he pocketed most of the $1 million or more he requested to pay the nursing home “rent” for the shelter between 2016 and 2021.
The main improvements to the warehouse are the removal of metal shelving and the addition of some showers.
Dean lost his license after a tragic evacuation
After Ida went on strike, Dean’s residents were forced to live filthy lives in warehouses. Some residents used buckets as temporary toilets. Others were screaming for help on deflated air mattresses.
When Dean checked in with key staff member Donis Boscareno, who was overseeing operations at the warehouse on August 30, 2021, she responded: This is not possible. People are dying. We need to send them to a place where they can be medically cared for. “
Dean told her to calm down and ordered her not to let patients out of the building unless it was a life-or-death situation. rice field.
“Dean clearly put the health of the business ahead of the health of the residents,” Justice Department attorneys wrote in the complaint.
By September 2, the Louisiana Department of Health had all of Dean’s residents vacated the warehouse, citing his objections.
LDH revoked Dean’s nursing home license on September 7, causing him many problems. Having a valid license was one of the terms of his contract with HUD. Without a bank account, his mortgage lender was able to usurp control of the nursing home’s bank account.
Dean received notice on the same day that his lender, Capital Funding Group, was in control of those accounts. The creditors had sole legal authority to access them from that point on, the lawsuit says.
“Dean was furious when he learned that the retirement home sale and huge payday had failed,” the Justice Department complaint claims. “Dean yelled at the bookkeeper every day that he needed to move care home money.”
Despite warnings, Dean ordered ‘accounts to be wiped out’
Dean discovers that not all access to his account has been blocked. According to the DOJ, his bank allowed him to access the nursing home’s “shadow operating account” even though he was in breach of his federal contract.
He pressured the bookkeeper to “wipe out all the accounts.” On September 10, Dean’s bookkeeper transferred over his $365,000 from Homa’s Maison His Devil and over his $330,000 from Harvey’s Maison His Devil to Dean’s personal account.
Dean’s lender sent him another notice on September 13 that Dean was behind on his mortgage and was unable to access his account.
Over the next week, his bookkeeper transferred over $180,000 from the nursing home account to Dean’s personal account. In total, Dean drained more than $877,000 from federally restricted nursing home accounts.
Dean quickly ran out of it. On September 24, he won his $1.75 million at an antique firearms auction house. Then in his October, he dropped his $100,000 at a Ford dealership and handed out allowances and cash gifts to his wife and stepchildren.
Meanwhile, Dean borrowed from a retirement home reserve in early September 2021 to make mortgage payments on the house. HUD allowed the reserves to be tapped on the condition that they would be repaid by the end of 2021, but never did.
“while stealing [nursing home funds] In order to purchase guns, antiques, cars, and pay personal loans and family benefits, Dean failed to pay bills related to nursing homes after Hurricane Ida,” the DOJ complaint states.
At the time, Dean was suffering from dementia, and his lawyer later insisted he didn’t have to sit down to testify. came to manage his relationship with his wife.
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