The then-owner of seven nursing homes in Louisiana who transported them to a warehouse during Hurricane Ida in August and then essentially abandoned them with insufficient care and supplies has been arrested by the Louisiana Attorney General, WDSU NBC-6 in New Orleans reports.
Bob Dean allegedly had his staff drive residents of the nursing homes to a squalid warehouse in Independence, Louisiana, around 70 miles northeast of New Orleans. Dean’s medical staff stayed with the patients for days before trickling away, and when police initially tried to investigate the warehouse in the days after Hurricane Ida passed, they were barred from entering by Dean’s staff.
When officials finally got into the warehouse, they found fetid conditions overrun with filth and few healthcare workers taking care of the hundreds of patients. Four patients had died; two more would die in the following days from complications arising from the conditions in which they were found. Dean was charged with eight felony counts of cruelty to persons with infirmities, five felony counts of Medicaid fraud, and two felony counts of obstruction of justice.