Former nursing home owner Bob Dean changed his not guilty plea to no contest in a deal to avoid jail time over the botched evacuation of residents during Hurricane Ida.
The former nursing home owner was sentenced to three years’ probation Monday. A judge also entered $1.4 million in judgements against his firm.
Dean pleaded no contest to eight counts of cruelty to the infirmed, two counts of obstruction of justice, and five counts of Medicaid fraud after his company moved nursing home residents from various locations across southern Louisiana to a Tangipahoa Parish warehouse to ride out the storm.
According to a complaint filed last year, Dean had four nursing homes pay rent to cover a hurricane evacuation center. In reality, that facility was a warehouse that was crudely converted into a storm shelter in preparation for Hurricane Ida in August 2021. Fifteen of the 800 residents transferred to the warehouse died.
Days after the storm, the Louisiana Department of Health staged a day-long rescue where it removed the evacuees, and the state revoked the licenses of Dean’s nursing homes soon afterward.
The attorney general’s office had asked Judge Brian Abels to send Dean to prison.
