29 November 2022: Cuomo Files Motion to Force NY AG James to Release Files

Cuomo continues 'crusade' to get AG to release his case files

After months of inaction, the glacial pace of New York's legal system was upset by the latest legal maneuvering by Andrew M. Cuomo's team of highly compensated attorneys. Here's the very short summary: "A new motion filed by former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's attorney challenges attorney general's claim that sovereign immunity and law enforcement privileges shield them from disclosing the records from their investigation that concluded he was a serial sexual harasser."

Here's a longer excerpt:

An attorney for former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has asked a federal judge to deny the state attorney general's motion to quash a subpoena that would require the office to turn over all of its files on the investigation that led to Cuomo's resignation.

The 32-page motion was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn in connection with a lawsuit filed by a State Police investigator who accuses the former governor of sexually harassing her, kissing her on the cheek and inappropriately touching her stomach and back while she was assigned to his protective detail.

The motion filed by Cuomo's attorney, Rita Glavin, challenges the state attorney general's claims that sovereign immunity and law enforcement privileges shield them from disclosing the records, which court records indicate amount to about 73,000 documents, including communications with more than 100 witnesses.

Skipping ahead, here's the meat of what's in the motion and the attorney general office's response:

"Gov. Cuomo is entitled to discover the unreleased investigative materials. Without all documents underlying the (attorney general's) report, Gov. Cuomo will not have a full and fair opportunity to defend himself against Trooper 1’s allegations," Glavin wrote. "The (attorney general) should not be able to broadcast to the public that it is complying with the subpoena by producing what it claims are the only 'relevant' documents while strategically relying on sovereign immunity to withhold critical documents. This is particularly true since the missing documents will, in all likelihood, cast doubt on the investigation."

While invoking arguments of state sovereign immunity as well as law enforcement privilege, the attorney general's office has also voluntarily produced many documents in response to Cuomo's subpoena. Glavin noted that many of the undisclosed materials also were shared with law enforcement agencies and she disputes any assertion that they are "attorney-client" privileged documents.

The attorney general's office cast Cuomo's efforts to subpoena its records as "a relentless campaign to undermine the report and rehabilitate his reputation."

"It has nothing to do with any legitimate effort to obtain documents and information necessary for (Cuomo) to defend himself against the harassment and retaliation claims asserted by Trooper 1," the attorney general's office wrote in a motion asking a judge to reject the subpoena.

We'll keep on the watch for more slowly moving legal procedures....

28 November 2022: Feds Stop New Admissions at NJ Nursing Homes for Veterans

Feds halt new admissions at troubled NJ veterans home as safety, COVID problems remain

This story came out on Friday, 25 November 2022, in the style of a Friday night news dump during a holiday weekend by politicians desperately seeking to avoid attention. We did notice however, and we're making a point of putting it front and center first thing on the Monday morning after the holiday. Here's an excerpt:

The federal agency that acts as the primary funding source for New Jersey's troubled veterans homes began withholding payments this week at the Menlo Park facility after Gov. Phil Murphy's administration failed to fix major problems with infection control, officials confirmed late Wednesday.

The move effectively stopped the Edison nursing home from admitting new residents to the facility, which families across New Jersey depend on to take care of their ailing loved ones, many whom served in the Korean and Vietnam wars.

Major Ameila Thatcher, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, confirmed that new admissions "are temporarily paused."

In a statement to NorthJersey.com, a spokesman for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said problems that "significantly impacted the safety of residents" documented in a scathing inspection report over the summer had still not been corrected to the agency's satisfaction.

"Denial of payment for all new admissions began on [Tuesday] because the ongoing quality concerns have not been addressed," said Bruce Alexander, communications director of CMS.

What the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS) are effectively saying is they have no confidence in troubled NJ Governor Phil Murphy's actions to date to address the now well-documented problems at the state government-operated nursing homes for veterans. CMMS is using the power of its purse to force Governor Murphy to rectify the problems that his administration has so far allowed to go unaddressed since they permitted COVID to decimate the population of residents at these facilities in early 2020.

27 November 2022: NJ Lawmakers Demand Reform of State-Operated Nursing Homes for Veterans

NJ lawmakers call for overhaul of state veterans homes in wake of report, COVID deaths

After being called out by a whistleblower for their inaction, New Jersey state lawmakers are suddenly acting with the kind of urgency that only public pressure driven by scandal-oriented news coverage can deliver. Here's an excerpt:

Operation of New Jersey’s state-run veterans homes, where more than 200 residents died during the COVID pandemic, should be removed from the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs and made part of a new state department of veterans services, the chair of the state Senate Health Committee said this week.

“We made a promise we would care for [the veterans] at the highest level after they served our country,” said state Sen. Joe Vitale, chair of the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee. “We’re not. We're failing them. Changing personnel here or there won’t make the difference.”

The state's lawmakers have a lot of making up to do for not taking even minimal actions earlier. Actions like probing what happened at New Jersey's nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. It's unfortunate NorthJersey.com decided to wait until after the midterm elections to escalate its coverage of the scandal affecting the role of state lawmakers in permitting the problems at New Jersey's nursing homes to go unaddressed for so long.

27 November 2022: Whistleblower Speaks About NJ's COVID Nursing Home Deaths for Veterans

Exclusive: Exec who blew the whistle on NJ COVID deaths at vets home says key flaws remain

Welcome back from the Thanksgiving holiday! We're picking things up with this in-depth story about the whistleblower who reported the COVID deaths taking place at nursing homes for veterans operated by the New Jersey state government. Here's the introduction, which communicates the urgency that existed back in early 2020:

As COVID raced through the state-run veterans home in Paramus at the start of the pandemic in 2020, an administrator watched with growing alarm as residents died, staff members fell sick and the facility ran short of masks, gloves, gowns and tests. Panic spread as quickly as the virus itself.

When the death toll climbed to six or seven a day at an institution that typically saw three or four resident deaths a week, that administrator became the whistleblower who called himself “vetkeeper.”

On April 8, 2020, using his pseudonym and an encrypted email service based in Switzerland, he contacted NorthJersey.com to report what he was seeing.

“Nearly 40 resident deaths since March 25,” he wrote. “Ten more residents positive, 47 waiting test results ... The public needs to know. I am on the inside. I will keep you posted.”

The first story of the deaths at the New Jersey Memorial Veterans Home at Paramus, based on information from “vetkeeper” and other sources, broke that evening. “Vetkeeper” arrived at work the next morning to find two news trucks out front, a helicopter overhead and the National Guard on the way.

But in many respects, it was too late. Nearly a third of the residents at the Paramus veterans home would die of COVID or presumed COVID. In all, more than 200 residents died at New Jersey’s two hardest-hit veterans homes — 86 from confirmed COVID in Paramus and 72 in Menlo Park, with another 47 at the two homes presumed to have died from COVID.

That's old news, here's the new news, as the whistleblower has now disclosed their identity:

Now “vetkeeper” has decided to reveal his identity and say more about the veterans home. He is Dave Ofshinsky, former business manager and, for a brief period, assistant CEO for non-clinical affairs at the Paramus home, where he worked for 5½ years.

He says he is doing so out of frustration at what has not happened since that initial COVID crisis.

“Nothing has happened from the administration [of Gov. Phil Murphy] on this,” Ofshinsky said in a recent interview at his home. “When it was happening, the governor said there was going to be a ‘post-mortem. We’ll get to the bottom of this.’”

A recent scathing inspection report on the state veterans home at Menlo Park, a sister institution, only strengthened his views. It cited the home for having COVID infection control lapses that jeopardized the health and safety of all its residents and staff, as well as abuse of a resident. This week, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, threatened to effectively shut down the home saying they would stop paying for new admissions beginning Nov. 22, and stop all payments by March 8 unless "substantial compliance is achieved."

“All that’s happened has been the payouts to families,” Ofshinsky said, referring to $69 million in state funds to 190 families of dead or sickened veterans to quietly settle their legal claims.

Payouts to settle legal claims might bring a sense of closure to some, Ofshinsky said, but “I myself never had a sense of closure that the state has done the right thing to prevent something like this ever happening again.”

Ofshinsky is well justified in his view, because New Jersey's state government has not acted to correct the well documented problems at the nursing homes it ran. In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice has made no visible progress in its criminal investigation of what happened in New Jersey's nursing homes for months.

There's quite a lot more to the story, so we'll recommend clicking through to the story to get all the details.

10 November 2022: Veterans group blasts Murphy over scathing COVID inspection report at veterans home

Veterans group blasts Murphy over scathing COVID inspection report at veterans home

Some well-deserved blowback directed at the New Jersey state officials responsible for operating the state's nursing homes for veterans is now becoming public. Here's an excerpt from NorthJersey.com's report:

The Veterans of Foreign Wars blasted Gov. Phil Murphy on Thursday following the release of a scathing inspection report this week that found allegations of abuse and lack of infection control to contain COVID-19 at the New Jersey Veterans Memorial Home at Menlo Park, where more than 100 residents died from the virus.

"The report strongly suggests that under governor Murphy’s watch the conditions have not significantly improved since 2020 when our New Jersey veterans under his care died in the highest numbers," Jay Boxwell, the VFW's state commander, wrote in a news release.

He said the Murphy administration "continues to care for our veterans as second-class citizens."

Christi Peace, a spokeswoman for Murphy, said the administration did not want to comment because there is an "ongoing investigation at Menlo Park." She said in an email that the administration "values input from veteran groups and shares the same goal of protecting the health and well-being of veterans under the state's care."

The "ongoing investigation" is a criminal probe by the U.S. Department of Justice under the Biden administration that hasn't made any visible progress toward any conclusion for many, many months.

8 November 2022: New Inspection of NJ Veterans Home Shows Major Issues Still Exist Years After COVID Deaths

New inspection of NJ veterans home shows major issues still exist years after COVID deaths

The lack of consequences for government officials responsible for either overseeing or providing care at New Jersey's state-operated nursing homes for veterans related to 2020's COVID nursing home deaths has led to a very predictable result. Here is an excerpt from NorthJersey.com's Scott Fallon and Lindy Washburn 8 November 2022 report:

When COVID-19 swept through the New Jersey Veterans Memorial Home at Menlo Park, killing more than 100 residents in early 2020, administrators, lawmakers and even Gov. Phil Murphy vowed changes would be made to ensure better care of the elderly men and women at the state-run facility.

But a team of state Health Department inspectors found the opposite during an inspection over the summer.

A 293-page inspection report cited the facility for four separate violations of nursing home standards that put all of its residents and staff in "immediate jeopardy" — the most severe and widespread level of harm in the enforcement arsenal. Among the citations is failure to contain the spread of COVID in a November 2021 outbreak that lasted for months due to a lack of basic infection control, testing and contact tracing....

Menlo Park, along with its sister home in Paramus, already had one of the largest death tolls of any nursing home during the pandemic. There have been 72 confirmed resident deaths at Menlo Park along with 39 probable deaths in which residents who were not tested died of COVID symptoms at the height of the pandemic.

Paramus had 86 confirmed and eight probable deaths. New Jersey's third state-run veterans home in Vineland had 14 confirmed deaths.

For more than two years, Murphy has repeatedly said his administration would conduct a "full accounting" and a "post-mortem" at the homes to ensure the health and safety of future residents. But Murphy has never defined what he means and there is no indication he has launched an investigation. Only one legislative hearing has been held on the veterans homes by a Senate committee in August 2020 that explored some of the reasons the death toll was so high.

The new report is the first indication that promised reforms haven't come to fruition.

Democratic party politicians in New Jersey's state legislature have blocked any probe of what happened in New Jersey's nursing homes during the COVID pandemic, claiming it would interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice under the Biden administration.

We can find no evidence in the news media that any progress has been made in that probe for nearly a year. The absence of effective action by the Biden DOJ and New Jersey state officials to investigate the negligence and other serious abuses that occurred at New Jersey's veterans homes during the pandemic now means none of those problems are being fixed.

5 November 2022: Replacement NY Governor Slammed for Slow-Walking Cuomo COVID Nursing Home Deaths Probe

Gov. Hochul slammed for timing of probe into Cuomo’s COVID response

After months of needless inaction, replacement NY Governor Kathy Hochul has earned criticism for her extremely slow response to investigate Andrew M. Cuomo' COVID nursing home deaths scandals. The criticism comes as Hochul awarded a multi-million dolar contract to a law firm that will investigate how state's policies under the resigned-in-disgrace former NY governor Andrew M. Cuomo contributed to excess COVID deaths at the state's nursing homes.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has awarded a $4.3 million contract to investigate New York’s Andrew Cuomo-led response to the coronavirus outbreak — drawing fire from critics who accuse her of slow-walking the probe until after Tuesday’s election.

The one-year contract goes to consultant the Olson Group, an emergency management firm in Alexandria, Va. Hochul, who was lieutenant governor during the pandemic, first announced the planned probe in July.

But critics say the timing of the firm’s hire is curious — announced during the final days of a gubernatorial campaign where Hochul is fighting for her political life in a closer than expected race against Republican opponent Lee Zeldin.

“Given that COVID killed more than 75,000 New Yorkers — and the next virus could arrive at any time — the state’s leaders might have been expected to show more urgency in studying how to improve their operations,” said Bill Hammond, health analyst at the Empire Center for Public Policy, in a blog post.

Here's a link to Hammond's post criticizing Hochul's "underwhelming" response. We would describe his critique of Hochul's absence of proactive leadership as particularly damning:

Back in April, Hochul reportedly told her cabinet she wanted a “deep dive” on the state’s response in a matter of weeks, then waited until July to launch the search for outside help. Officials estimated they would award the contract “on or about” Sept. 20, which was six weeks ago.

Given that COVID killed more than 75,000 New Yorkers – and the next virus could arrive at any time – the state’s leaders might have been expected to show more urgency in studying how to improve their operations.

Worse, Hammond notes the legal firm will not have subpoena power, which will hamper its ability to gather information from state officials that may seek to cover up their role in the COVID nursing home deaths scandals:

Further revealing details can be found in the state’s answers to questions posed by firms that were thinking of bidding for the study contract.

Firms were curious about how much access they would be given to relevant information such as data, documents and interviews with current and former officials – which is an important consideration given the Cuomo administration’s months-long attempt to hide the true COVID death toll in nursing homes.

The state’s response gave no guarantees:

“The State will work with the vendor to access state data as expeditiously as possible. … Please note, this review does not and will not have the power to compel participation or document production.” (Emphasis added.)

In other words, the Olson Group will not have subpoena power to obtain documents or testimony from the former governor, his top aides or any other uncooperative witnesses – which could be a significant obstacle to getting at the truth.

Hammond's larger point is that the probe Hochul has so belatedly initiated is, by design, not capable of producing results that will lead to effective reforms. Reforms that would prevent the repeat of policy failures Andrew M. Cuomo's inadequate leadership produced during the period his deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect. Those policy failures led to the excess deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of New York's nursing home residents.

With the 2022 elections set to take place on Tuesday, 8 November, it is possible their outcome could determine whether New York follows the path replacement governor Hochul has chosen or pursues a more robust response with different leaders in charge. We'll find out soon enough.