21 face abuse charges at Alzheimer’s center

Facility shut down after warrants issued. Allegations say felons on staff, meds were missing, patients hit.

COMMERCE — The patients at Alzheimer’s Care of Commerce were slapped, improperly medicated, restrained with bed sheets and had water thrown on them, investigators say. Some of their caretakers were convicted felons, who subjected them to double-diapering so they didn’t have to be changed as often.

On Tuesday, the private facility in Jackson County was temporarily taken over by the state, and warrants were issued for 21 current and former employees after a two-month investigation spearheaded by the GBI.

Twenty-six patients were living at the facility when 35 law enforcement officers swept in to execute a search warrant, GBI director Vernon Keenan said.

Authorities sent three of the facility’s patients to hospitals after they were physically examined. No information on those patients was available Tuesday evening.

The rest were temporarily taken care of by 35 social workers and other health care professionals, who were also assisting stunned family members. The family members were asked to find other facilities for their loved ones.

Keenan said 72 warrants were issued against Don- na Wright, the facility’s owner, and 20 current and former employees.

They are charged with cruelty to a person 65 years of age or older, abuse, neglect and financial exploitation and failure to report under the Protection of Disabled Adults and Elderly Persons, he said.

By 4 p.m. Tuesday, 14 were in custody, and a search was continuing for the others, a GBI spokesman said.

Wright’s attorney, Mo Wiltshire, said Wright and her husband owned and operated the facility for 18 years before the husband’s death three years ago.

The couple treated all of the residents like family, he said.

“And they have tried to provide loving and secure and safe care for them,” Wiltshire said. “We don’t have any details of what the supposed problems allegedly are. We are very, very surprise and shocked.”

Commerce Police Chief John Gaissert said he called in the GBI in April after receiving multiple complaints of elder abuse at the facility, beginning in late March.

During the investigation, the GBI learned patients were also being cared for by people with prior felony convictions ranging from voluntary manslaughter to drug charges to identify theft. State law bars felons from working in such facilities, Keenan said. Agents also found that unauthorized personnel were administering medications to the patients, and medications prescribed to the patients were found to be missing or unaccounted for during an audit of the facility in May 2013.

Records show the facility was inspected by the state in 2011 and 2013 and had multiple violations. Inspectors found, among other things, that the center had not run the required criminal background checks on some employees and had at least one person with an unsatisfactory criminal record check who had been on staff for years. They also found that some bathrooms were not properly ventilated and that the facility had admitted some patients who required a higher level of care.

The state Department of Community Health this year substantiated deficiencies “consistent with the GBI’s allegations,” said Pam Keene, agency spokesman. Beginning in late May, DCH monitored the facility on a daily basis until the facility was in full compliance, she said.

On Tuesday, James Duncan was moving his 97-year-old mother, Dollie, to another facility. He was in disbelief.

He said he came to the facility to see his mother at least twice a week and had “never seen anything” to indicate that the charges of abuse are true.

“I’ve talked to my sister and my brother, and they concur with that,” Duncan said.

Clyde Ivester, whose mother, mother-in-law and father-in-law have lived at the facility in recent years, said he visits regularly and has seen no indications of abuse. “We never saw rooms that were dirty, patients that were dirty or abused,” he said.

His wife, Gwen Ivester, said the couple did “a lot of research” before choosing the facility.

“We didn’t draw this name out of a hat,” she said. “That’s why we put our loved ones there. We had no complaints.”

Carol Wade said she had seen a patient tied to a wheelchair for safety reasons.

“But that’s understandable,” she said. “I haven’t seen anything that was alarming, or my mom wouldn’t be there.”

Keenan said the facility was “very, very clean” when authorities arrived there Tuesday, “indicating to us that they had been forewarned of the search warrant.”

Under the search warrant, law enforcement officials were allowed to search for patient records, financial records and documents dealing with patients’ medications that could show patient abuse, potential financial crimes and medicine irregularities, the GBI spokesman said.

Dewitt Todd arrived later Tuesday to pick up his dad, Ray Todd, and also expressed surprise at the allegations of abuse.

“The people I know here — that I’ve been seeing — have been nice to me and, as far as I know, have been nice to him,” Todd said of his 89-year-old father who has lived at the facility for about six months.

Dr. Tom Price, an Emory geriatrician who specializes in issues related to abuse and neglect of the elderly, said abuse cases are becoming more prevalent “not just in licensed but unlicensed” facilities.

“People with Alzheimer’s are much more vulnerable,” Price said. “In many cases, they don’t have capacity to report these events.”

BEN GRAY / AJC Dewitt Todd (left) and his father, Ray Todd, head to Dewitt’s car Tuesday after having to move Ray, 89, out of Alzheimer’s Care of Commerce, which was shut down by officials. Dewitt said his father lived there for six months and he had not seen...

Find a photo gallery of those who have been arrested so far in the case.