Steward Well being Care CEO Ralph de la Torre gained’t adjust to a subpoena to look earlier than a U.S. Senate committee that’s investigating the hospital firm’s chapter, his legal professionals stated Wednesday.
De la Torre wants to stay silent to respect an ongoing hospital reorganization and settlement effort, his legal professionals stated in a letter to Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Senate Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions Committee. A federal courtroom order prohibits de la Torre from discussing something throughout mediation, the legal professionals stated.
The Dallas-based Steward, which operated about 30 hospitals nationwide, together with greater than a half-dozen in Massachusetts, declared chapter earlier this yr. It has been making an attempt to promote its hospitals in Massachusetts, however acquired insufficient bids for 2 of them: Carney Hospital in Boston and Nashoba Valley Medical Heart within the city of Ayer, each of which closed final weekend.
A federal chapter courtroom on Wednesday accredited the sale of Steward’s different hospitals in Massachusetts.
Attorneys for de la Torre stated the U.S. Senate committee is looking for to show the listening to into “a pseudo-criminal proceeding in which they use the time, not to gather facts, but to convict Dr. de la Torre in the eyes of public opinion.”
“It is not within this Committee’s purview to make predeterminations of alleged criminal misconduct under the auspices of an examination into Steward’s bankruptcy proceedings, and the fact that its Members have already done so smacks of a veiled attempt to sidestep Dr. de la Torre’s constitutional rights,” the letter stated.
De la Torre didn’t rule out testifying earlier than the committee at a later date.
Sanders stated in a press release that he’ll be working with different members of the panel to find out one of the simplest ways to press de la Torre for solutions.
“Let me be clear: We will not accept this postponement. Congress will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the damage he has caused to hospitals and patients throughout America,” Sanders stated. “This Committee intends to move forward aggressively to compel Dr. de la Torre to testify to the gross mismanagement of Steward Health Care.”
Massachusetts U.S. Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren, each Democrats, referred to as de la Torre’s refusal to look earlier than the committee subsequent Thursday outrageous.
The committee’s choices embrace holding de la Torre in legal contempt, which may end in a trial and jail time; or civil contempt, which might end in fines till he seems. Each would require a Senate vote.
Markey and Warren stated de la Torre owes the general public and Congress solutions and should be held in contempt if he fails to look earlier than the committee.
“He got rich as private equity and real estate vultures picked apart, and drove into bankruptcy, hospitals that employed thousands of health care workers who served communities in Massachusetts and across the country,” the 2 stated in a joint assertion.
“De la Torre used hospitals as his personal piggy bank and lived in luxury while gutting Steward hospitals,” they added.
De la Torre additionally refused invites to testify at a Boston area listening to earlier this yr chaired by Markey.
Sanders has stated de la Torre turned obscenely rich by loading up hospitals from Massachusetts to Arizona with billions of {dollars} in debt and promoting the land beneath the hospitals to actual property executives who charged unsustainably excessive rents.
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