3 August 2022: Lawsuits Offer Look at Chaos in NJ Veterans Homes as COVID Soared, US DOJ Criminal Probe Is AWOL

Lies about deaths, orders not to wear masks: Lawsuits offer look at chaos in NJ veterans homes as COVID soared

With no sign of progress on the part of the Biden DOJ in its criminal probe of COVID deaths at New Jersey's state government-run nursing homes for veterans, civil lawsuits are now being filed. This portion of the report, which provides an overview of the legal claims behind the new lawsuites, follows a series of anecdotes of how medical care broke down at these facilities thanks to top-down mandates from the state government:

Employees of the troubled veterans home at Menlo Park have filed lawsuits alleging the state, the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, the governor’s office, and administrators of the state-operated nursing home needlessly put them in harm’s way as COVID struck.

Accusing the state of being “grossly negligent, knowingly careless, and reckless,” while deviating from accepted standards of long-term care when the first threats of COVID began to appear, the complaints, filed earlier this month in Superior Court in Middlesex County, cited disciplinary threats and termination for wearing masks. The lawsuits also allege that state and nursing home administrators deliberately released misinformation on the number of cases as residents kept getting sick and died in droves.

They also charged that Menlo Park’s nursing staff was directed to cease testing residents for COVID after several residents tested positive, and forced presumably COVID-positive employees to work at the Menlo Park Home.

In some cases, according to the complaints, public statements were released that were at odds with information the department had in hand, according to internal emails.

Attorney Paul M. da Costa of Roseland, who filed the complaints, said the lawsuits seek “a full accounting” and full measure of justice.

“My clients were the epitome of health care heroes during the early days of COVID. They were in the eye of the storm and the state refused to give them a life jacket to try and survive the storm,” he said.

Two of the state’s veterans homes — the one in Menlo Park and a second in Paramus — reported some of the highest COVID-related death tolls in the nation. A third state-operated facility is in Vineland. Overall, COVID claimed the lives of more than 200 residents and staff in the veterans homes, according to the state.

The bizarre and counterproductive role of New Jersey's state government officials in either operating or directing medical care policies at these nursing homes is driven home by the following comment from attorney Paul da Costa:

Remarking that he has been asked many times “why in the world would the state direct employees from wearing masks”, da Costa said there were people making those decisions “who were simply unqualified and or unfit.”

The documented incidents of recklessness on the part of state government officials at these nursing homes for veterans are why the Biden DOJ has been unable to sweep NJ Governor Phil Murphy's COVID nursing home deaths scandals away. Its criminal probe however has stalled, with the DOJ failing to provide any indication of progress in its investigation since late 2021.