AG seeks takeover of assisted living site
Fraud, lack of safety at Heritage Village alleged
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is seeking an immediate takeover of the troubled Heritage Village assisted living facility in Mesa, alleging that its current owners and managers endangered vulnerable adults and committed consumer fraud, according to a lawsuit she has filed.
Citing reporting from The Arizona Republic as an impetus to a state investigation, Mayes filed the suit naming more than 20 defendants, including Madison Realty Companies — the company that manages Heritage Village — and Linde Leibfried, the facility’s executive director.
The lawsuit asks Maricopa County Superior Court to immediately transfer the management of Heritage Village to a court-appointed receiver — a third-party individual whose job it would be to “bring the facility into full legal compliance and prevent the revocation of the facility license” by the state health department, according to the lawsuit.
If facility management ultimately is proven liable for elder abuse, its owners would have to sell not only Heritage Village but their Vision Senior Living centers in Apache Junction and Mesa as well.
“The events of the past several months demonstrate that the ownership and management of Heritage Village are unwilling and/or incapable of complying with the laws protecting the vulnerable adults in their care, most of whom pay Heritage Village thousands of dollars per month to reside there,” court documents state.
Last fall, The Republic revealed Heritage Village had racked up more citations than any other assisted living
Because the bill has an emergency clause, it would go into effect immediately once the governor signs it.
That could happen quickly. The amended version of Shope’s bill needs to win majority support in the House, and a vote in the Senate concurring with the changes, both of which could occur next week. Given overwhelming bipartisan support in prior votes on the slightly different measures, the bill is likely to pass and land on Hobbs’ desk. Hobbs has said she will sign it. As introduced, the prior version of Shope’s bill required more reporting but only in the two years before an election.
Shope said he believed the version of the bill moving forward would carry out the will of Arizonans who favor transparency, citing the overwhelming voter approval of last year’s Voters’ Right to Know Act mandating more disclosure of the groups funding political advertising.
“It seems very clear the people want to know who is influencing elections,” Shope said. “Not just elections, but in some cases, who has influence, period.”
Candidates for office have to file periodic campaign finance reports that give the public insight into political spending and to help prevent corruption or the appearance of it. The reports can reveal who is trying to influence powerful elected officials and policymakers. Campaign finance experts said Arizona’s law allowing the three-year gap without any reporting was unique in the nation.
Though the gap in reporting is allowed by current law, Hobbs stood apart from other elected officials in taking advantage of it. Other officeholders, including Hobbs’ fellow Democrats Attorney
General Kris Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, filed an annual report disclosing political finances earlier this year though it wasn’t required.
The governor’s political war chest has drawn more attention after Hobbs pledged to use it to elect more Democrats to the Legislature who could support her agenda and unseat slim GOP majorities. Those Republican majorities have served as a roadblock to most of Hobbs’ policy goals and erected hurdles last year as Hobbs tried to get her agency directors in place.
GOP lawmakers have criticized Hobbs for not keeping up with her campaign commitments to be accountable and transparent, concerns that grew from her t secret inaugural fundraising into a dark money group that does not reveal its donors. The Hobbs campaign ultimately disclosed those donors under public pressure to do so.
If it passes, the amended campaign finance bill would require four-year officeholders and candidates to file public reports more often than state lawmakers. Lawmakers are elected every two years and file quarterly reports only in the year of an election. For the off year, only an annual accounting is required.
Gress said statewide officeholders should disclose their donors more frequently because of their immense executive power, including to award contracts that spend taxpayer dollars and implement programs.
“I oversee half of an assistant, that’s all I oversee,” Gress said.
“You have these executive branch officials overseeing hundreds of people, and having them carry out their agenda that they’ve been elected to pursue. So we are very different in terms of our role.”