Charges filed in deaths at Soldiers’ Home
AG brings criminal counts in COVID-19 outbreak
In what Attorney General Maura Healey called the first case of its kind nationwide, two top leaders at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home will face criminal charges for their alleged role in exacerbating a deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the facility.
Healey alleged that Superintendent Bennett Walsh and former Medical Director David Clinton put veterans’ lives at risk by combining residents who were symptomatic or COVIDpositive into close quarters with residents who were still asymptomatic.
Their response while the highly infectious virus swept through the home, Healey said during a Friday press conference, “led to tragic and deadly results.”
“It never should have happened from an infection control standpoint,” Healey said. “This is a decision that put veterans who were asymptomatic at greater
risk of contracting COVID19 and at a higher risk of death.”
Healey’s prosecution focuses on specific actions Walsh and Clinton ordered at the home on March 27, days after the home first confirmed the presence of the virus.
Facing staffing shortages, Walsh and Clinton allegedly combined 42 residents from two dementia units — some of whom were COVID-positive and some of whom showed no symptoms for the illness — into a single unit that normally holds 25 beds. Rooms meant to hold four people instead housed six or seven veterans, Healey said.
Nine beds were placed “a few feet apart” in a dining room and next to a room holding residents with confirmed COVID-19 infections.
The charges are based on five veterans who were placed in the dining room, all of whom were asymptomatic at the time. Three of the five contracted the virus after the move, one of whom died, Healey said.
“They were not showing any symptoms of COVID19 before being moved into this consolidated unit, and we allege that that decision to move them, those five, into that unit was a decision that increased their risk of exposure and the risk of harm and death,” she said.
A statewide grand jury on Thursday indicted Walsh, a 50-year-old Springfield resident, and Clinton, a 71-year-old South Hadley resident, each on five counts of caretaker neglect of an elder or disabled person and five counts of causing or permitting serious bodily injury to an elder or disabled person.
Both charges are felonies, with each neglect charge carrying a maximum prison sentence of three years and each serious bodily injury charge carrying a maximum sen
tence of 10 years, Healey said.
Walsh and Clinton will be arraigned in Hampden Superior Court at a future date, Healey said.
At least 76 residents of the Holyoke home died as a result of COVID-19, making it one of the deadliest outbreaks in the state and likely in the country.
“They risked their lives, from the beaches of Normandy to the jungles of Vietnam, and to know that they died under the most horrific circumstances is truly shocking,” Healey said. “From the time we became aware of this, we made it a priority. We owed it to the families who lost loved ones and these veterans who served our country to get to the bottom of what happened.”
Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have been particularly vulnerable during the pandemic. In Massachusetts, roughly two-thirds of the 9,000-plus deaths linked to the virus occurred in long-term care facilities, according to state data.
Healey said Friday that the charges stemming from her office’s investigation set a national precedent.
“We believe this is the first criminal case in the country brought against those involved in nursing homes during the COVID19 pandemic,” she said.
Healey also has “active and ongoing investigations into a number of other facilities across the state” with high numbers of COVID-19 deaths or infection rates, she said.
Walsh’s attorney, William Bennett, said in a statement that the superintendent had been unfairly targeted for the tragedy when blame should rest with state and federal governments that were slow to respond.
“It is unfortunate that the Attorney General is blaming the effects of a deadly virus that our state and federal governments have not been able to stop on Bennett Walsh,” Bennett the attorney said, pointing to Walsh’s decades of military service. “He, like other nursing home administrators throughout the Commonwealth and nation, could not prevent the virus from coming to the Home or stop its spread once it arrived there.”
“At all times, Mr. Walsh relied on the medical professionals to do what was best for the veterans given the tragic circumstances of a virus in a home with veterans in close quarters, severe staffing shortages, and the lack of outside help from state officials,” Bennett continued. “The Attorney General should not be scapegoating Mr. Walsh, who was on the front lines trying his best to do whatever he could to help the Veterans of the Holyoke Soldiers Home, including asking for help from state officials and the National Guard, which arrived much too late.”
A phone number listed for Clinton’s medical practice was inactive Friday.
Healey said she charged Walsh and Clinton because “they were the ultimate decision-makers.” She declined to say if any other individuals could face charges, adding that her office would examine any new information that emerges. With her charges filed, two separate investigations into the crisis at the Holyoke home have now found that critical errors contributed to the toll.
Gov. Charlie Baker tapped former U.S. Attorney Mark Pearlstein to conduct an independent review, and Pearlstein concluded in a report published June 24 that Walsh’s team made a series of “utterly baffling” decisions. Francisco Urena, who was the veterans secretary services at the time, resigned.
Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders fired Walsh via letter the same day as the report’s release, but a judge this week nullified that move, ruling that only the home’s board of trustees can remove a superintendent.
The board plans to meet on Sept. 30 in executive session to discuss how to proceed. Asked if she believed Walsh was qualified for the job — after Pearlstein’s report found he did not have the experience necessary — Healey replied, “No, this criminal case clearly demonstrates he was not qualified.”
She did not criticize the Baker administration directly, though, saying that Baker “did a good thing” by seeking an independent investigation and voicing support for reforms to management, oversight, and licensing at the home.
U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling is also investigating the outbreak, while the Legislature established a special joint oversight committee and asked it to submit findings and recommendations by March 31, 2021.