Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Lawyers say Scott destroyed evidence
Would have cleared nursing home workers in manslaughter case
HOLLYWOOD — Former Florida Gov. Rick Scott destroyed evidence that would have cleared the employees of a Hollywood nursing home accused of doing nothing as the patients in their care died in sweltering conditions, according to court papers filed this week.
Attorneys for defendants Sergo Colin and Jorge Carballo are asking Broward Circuit Judge John Murphy to dismiss manslaughter charges against their clients, arguing that deleted voicemails to Scott would have proved that employees of the Rehabilitation
Center at Hollywood Hills tried but failed to get help as conditions worsened after Hurricane Irma struck in 2017.
Twelve resident of the center, ranging in age from 57 to 99, died
from heat-related ailments after the storm, which knocked out the facility’s air conditioning system. As temperatures climbed in the two-story building, patients complained to no avail.
On Sept. 13, 2017, three days after Irma passed, eight Rehabilitation Center patients died. Four others died in the weeks that followed.
Last summer, Carballo, the home’s chief administrator, Colin, a supervising nurse, and two others were charged with aggravated manslaughter and negligence.
Each manslaughter charge carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.
But lawyers for Carballo and Colin say the charges should be dropped.
“There was no culpable negligence on the part of these defendants concerning this unprecedented and catastrophic event for which Rick Scott and FPL failed to plan properly both before and after the event,” the attorneys wrote. “Rick Scott and FPL failed to restore power despite multiple assurances it would be restored on a priority basis.”
Worse, they said, when employees of the nursing home called a phone number Scott gave them before the storm, their messages were dismissed.
“They said there was nothing they could do,” said David Frankel, an attorney representing Colin. “That proves they received the messages.”
But in the weeks after the storm, when news organizations filed public information requests for the recordings, they were told the recordings had been deleted.
A spokeswoman for the Broward State Attorney’s Office said prosecutors are reviewing the motion to dismiss and will respond to it in writing.
Rick Scott, governor at the time of Hurricane Irma, was later elected to the U.S. Senate.
“These individuals are being held accountable for their inexplicable failure to call 911 when people were in need,” his spokeswoman Clare Lattanze said in an email Thursday. “Every child knows that when there is imminent danger, 911 is the number to call. Yet, trained health staff at this facility didn’t even do that.
“The individuals responsible for these senseless deaths must be brought to justice, and no amount of finger pointing will change the fact that this health care facility failed to do their basic duty to protect life.”
Earlier this month, Murphy rejected a defense motion to dismiss the case on other grounds, but ordered prosecutors to spell out specifically what the defendants should have done as the crisis was unfolding.