A new complaint filed by the U.S. Department of Justice alleges nursing home owner Bob Dean, who had his licenses revoked after a deadly evacuation to Tangipahoa Parish during Hurricane Ida, pulled millions of dollars from federal loans into his personal banking accounts.
The United States’ complaint alleges that from 2016-2021 Dean required his nursing homes to pay rent on the industrial warehouse in Independence where seven people died in inhumane conditions after evacuating there during Hurricane Ida. Rent payments totaled over $1 million, the DOJ reports, and were meant to prepare the warehouse for a hurricane. In the days leading up to Hurricane Ida’s landfall, 840 residents from Dean’s nursing homes arrived at the warehouse to find sanitation not maintained and a lack of sufficient food and medical supplies. Residents were forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor without adequate staff.
Authorities say Dean funneled much of the rent money into his personal bank accounts. In total, the DOJ says Dean misspent and misallocated more than $4 million of the nursing homes’ assets and income.
Dean faces eight felony counts of cruelty to persons with infirmities, five felony counts of Medicaid fraud, and two felony counts of obstruction of justice, for allegedly intimidating and obstructing public health officials and law enforcement. Dean pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Last November, a Jefferson Parish judge approved a $12.5 million class-action civil lawsuit for patients and their families.
