Steward CEO says he won’t comply with Senate subpoena on hospital closings
BOSTON — Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre will not respond to a subpoena to appear before a U.S. Senate committee investigating the hospital company’s bankruptcy, his lawyers said Wednesday.
De la Torre must remain silent to respect an ongoing hospital restructuring and settlement, his lawyers wrote in a letter to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. A federal court order prevents de la Torre from discussing anything during the mediation, the lawyers said.
Dallas-based Steward, which operated about 30 hospitals across the country, including more than a half-dozen in Massachusetts, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. It tried to sell its Massachusetts hospitals but did not receive enough bids for two of them: Carney Hospital in Boston and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in the town of Ayer, both of which closed over the weekend.
A federal bankruptcy court on Wednesday approved the sale of Steward’s other hospitals in Massachusetts.
Lawyers for de la Torre said the U.S. Senate committee wants to turn the hearing into “a pseudo-criminal proceeding where they use the time not to gather facts, but to convict Dr. de la Torre in the eyes of the public.”
“It is not within the authority of this committee to prejudge alleged criminal misconduct based on an investigation into Steward’s bankruptcy proceedings. The fact that its members have done so represents a veiled attempt to circumvent Dr. de la Torre’s constitutional rights,” the letter said.
De la Torre did not rule out testifying before the committee later.
Sanders said in a statement that he will work with other members of the panel to determine the best way to ask De la Torre for answers.
“Let me be clear: We will not accept this delay. Congress will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the harm he has caused to hospitals and patients across America,” Sanders said. “This committee intends to move aggressively to force Dr. de la Torre to testify about the gross mismanagement of Steward Health Care.”
U.S. Senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, both Democrats, called de la Torre’s refusal to appear before the committee next Thursday outrageous.
The committee’s options include holding la Torre in criminal contempt of court, which could result in a trial and jail time; or civil contempt, which would result in fines until he appears. Both would require a Senate vote.
Markey and Warren said de la Torre is accountable to the public and Congress and that he would be in contempt of court if he fails to appear before the committee.
“He grew rich as private equity and real estate vultures broke up and bankrupted hospitals that employed thousands of health care workers serving communities in Massachusetts and across the country,” the two said in a joint statement.
“De la Torre used hospitals as his personal piggy bank and lived in luxury while hollowing out the Steward hospitals,” they added.
De la Torre also declined invitations to testify at a hearing in Boston chaired by Markey earlier this year.
Sanders said de la Torre became ridiculously wealthy by loading hospitals from Massachusetts to Arizona with billions of dollars in debt and selling the land beneath the hospitals to real estate managers who charged unsustainable rents.