Comprehensive Healthcare nursing homes found guilty of fraud, but executives acquitted

A federal jury on Monday found two nursing homes guilty of health care fraud but exonerated all five of their executives charged in the scheme.

The mixed verdict was returned at 11:15 a.m. in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh following a five-week trial that featured 29 government witnesses.

The two nursing homes, Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center in Beaver County and Mt. Lebanon Rehabilitation and Wellness Center, are both owned by Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services.

The corporate defendants are scheduled to be sentenced in May before U.S. District Judge Robert J. Colville.

The five people charged — Sam Halper, owner and CEO of Comprehensive Healthcare; Eva Hamilton of Beaver, who served as the director of nursing at Brighton Rehab; Michelle Romeo of Hillsville, Lawrence County, a regional manager with oversight over nurses at the two facilities; Director of Social Services Johnna Haller of Monaca; and former Mt. Lebanon Rehab administrator Susan Gilbert of Cecil — appeared to become more relieved as each of the 14 counts on the verdict slip were read.

By the end, they were crying and hugging their attorneys.

“Throughout this case, all defendants cooperated with the U.S. Department of Justice in every way possible. Yet, DOJ pursued individuals without regard for the truth,” Halper said in a statement. “Thankfully, the jurors were able to hear the evidence and find that the facts did not support DOJ’s claims.”

His attorney, Kirk Ogrosky, called the prosecution “frivolous and in bad faith from Day One.

“While the jury’s verdict speaks volumes about the allegations against these individuals, it does not undo the damage brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI on the lives of these innocent people,” he added.

Brighton Rehab, charged as a corporation, was found guilty of health care fraud and five counts of falsification of records in a federal investigation.

Mt. Lebanon was found guilty of one count of falsification of records related to health care matters and three counts of falsification of records in a federal investigation.

Colin Callahan, the attorney for the nursing homes, said he was disappointed in the verdict. The corporate clients, he said, will fight the conviction.

Comprehensive Healthcare also is the subject of a federal labor dispute.

In that case, the U.S. Department of Labor alleges that Comprehensive Healthcare facilities failed to pay thousands of employees appropriately under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The company has admitted liability, and a bench trial to determine potential wages and damages — which federal attorneys said could be as high as $40 million — is scheduled before U.S. District Judge William S. Stickman IV on Jan. 8.

In the criminal case, the potential sentence could be as much as five years of probation and a fine of $500,000.

Whether the facilities would still be able to receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements is an administrative decision to be made through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

HHS did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.

Paul Pelletier, who represented Hamilton, said after the verdict that the case should never have been brought.

“Good cases are obvious from the start,” he said. “This was never a good case.”

Pelletier said he did not know why the jury split the verdict the way it did.

“Common sense would tell you it’s always easier to convict a corporation than a human being,” he said.

The government filed the sprawling criminal case alleging two different schemes by the defendants.

In one, staff was accused of falsifying documents to make it appear the nursing homes were meeting government-mandated staffing requirements. Prosecutors said administrators at the facilities listed employees on staffing sheets that were not working, calling them ghost employees.

In some instances, an employee would clock in, but not work at all during their shift.

Prosecutors alleged that the scheme put patients in potential danger because there weren’t enough staff members to provide the patients with necessary direct care.

In the second scheme, the government alleged that nursing home administrators changed patient depression scores and therapy recommendations and delayed discharge dates to earn increased reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid.

Defense attorneys Catherine Recker and Amy Carver, who represented Haller, said they were gratified by the verdict.

“This is complete vindication for Johnna,” Carver said. “The jurors recognized that there was no evidence that Johnna engaged in any wrongdoing and that these misguided charges singled her out for conduct that is commonplace in a nursing facility.”

Bruce Antkowiak, a law professor at Saint Vincent College, called Monday’s verdict strange.

He said it’s possible the jurors compromised in reaching their decision, believing that there were bad practices at the nursing homes, but that “it wasn’t the result of an individual’s active intent to defraud.”

“The idea of juries compromising is ancient and well-known,” Antkowiak said. “I don’t know if it occurred here, but it could have.”