Nursing home owner faces new lawsuit in Ida storm evacuation
A Louisiana nursing home owner is facing a new lawsuit over evacuating residents to a squalid warehouse to ride out Hurricane Ida in 2021
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A nursing home owner who faces criminal and civil complaints over evacuating residents to a squalid warehouse to ride out Hurricane Ida in 2021 is now being sued by federal authorities who say he misspent $4 million.
The latest complaint against Bob Dean Jr. was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Baton Rouge and alleges he violated federal regulations.
Dean already lost state licenses and federal funding for crowding residents of seven nursing homes into an ill-prepared facility in the town of Independence, Louisiana, roughly 70 miles (110 kilometers) northwest of New Orleans. Authorities said they found sick and elderly people bedridden there after the storm, with patients on mattresses on the wet floor. Some were crying for help and some lying in their own waste.
The new complaint focuses on four of the nursing homes, the corporate entities Dean formed to operate them and federal regulations that applied to the organizations as businesses with federal mortgage insurance.
