25 September 2020: Massachusetts Veterans Home Administrators Criminally Charged for 'Deadly Decision'

Two Officials Charged for 'Deadly Decision' at Holyoke Soldier's Home

The "two official charged" are former Superintendent Bennett Walsh and former Medical Director David Clinton of the Holyoke Soldiers' Home in Massachusetts. Under their direction, the 247-bed Massachusetts government-run facility for poor, sick veterans deliberately mixed coronavirus-infected and non-infected patients in close proximity, ensuring COVID-19 would spread among the vulnerable, non-infected patients and staff like "fire through dry grass", ultimately leading to 76 patient deaths.

Their decision has been described by Massachusetts' prosecutors as reckless. In practice, it is virtually indistinguishable from what occurred in New York's nursing homes under the Cuomo administration's 25 March 2020 directive to force nursing homes in their jurisdiction to blindly admit coronavirus-infected patients without any testing to verify whether they were still infectious, which contributed to New York's worst-in-the-nation COVID-19 death toll.

The criminal charges filed in Massachusetts illustrate the kind of legal liability risk that Governor Andrew Cuomo and members of his administration may face in New York, which contributes to their motives to stonewall the release of public records documenting what happened in New York's nursing homes while their 25 March 2020 directive was in effect and to either prevent or obstruct independent investigations of it.