BOSTON — Members of a U.S. Senate committee investigating the bankruptcy of Steward Health Care passed two resolutions Thursday seeking to hold CEO Ralph de la Torre in contempt of court — one for civil enforcement and the other for criminal contempt of court — for failing to testify before the committee.
The votes come after de la Torre refused to attend a committee meeting last week despite having been served with a summons. Both resolutions will be sent to the full Senate for consideration.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said de la Torre’s decision to ignore the subpoena left the committee with little choice but to file contempt of court charges.
“For months, this committee has invited Dr. de la Torre to testify about the financial mismanagement and what happened at Steward Health Care,” Sanders said during Thursday’s hearing. “He has arrogantly refused to appear time and time again.”
Alexander Merton, an attorney for de la Torre, wrote in a letter to the committee on Wednesday that the committee’s request to have him testify would violate his Fifth Amendment rights.
The Constitution protects De la Torre from being required by the government to provide sworn testimony, which would position him “as a criminal scapegoat for the systemic failures in Massachusetts’ health care system,” Merton wrote, adding that De la Torre would like to testify at a later date.
“Our concern that the hearing would be used to target Dr. de la Torre in a pseudo-criminal proceeding was made fully apparent last week, when the Committee solicited testimony from witnesses who called Dr. de la Torre and Steward executives ‘healthcare terrorists’ and called for Dr. de la Torre’s imprisonment,” Merton added.
The order for civil enforcement of the subpoena directs the Senate’s legal counsel to file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking De la Torre’s testimony before the committee.
The criminal contempt of court finding would refer the case to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to criminally prosecute De la Torre for failing to comply with the subpoena.
“Even though Dr. de la Torre is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Even though he can own luxury yachts and private jets and luxury accommodations all over the world. Even though he can afford some of the most expensive lawyers in America, Dr. de la Torre is not above the law,” Sanders said.
Steward, based in Texas, which operates about 30 hospitals across the country, filed for bankruptcy in May,
Steward has worked on the sale of half a dozen Hospitals in MassachusettsBut it received insufficient bids for two other hospitals, Carney Hospital in Boston and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in the town of Ayer, both of which closed as a result.
This month, a federal bankruptcy court approved the sale of Steward’s other hospitals in Massachusetts.
Steward has also closed pediatric units in Massachusetts and Louisiana, closed neonatal units in Florida and Texas, and closed the maternity ward at a Florida hospital.
At the same time, de la Torre has personally made hundreds of millions of dollars and purchased a $40 million yacht and a $15 million luxury fishing boat, Sanders said.
Ellen MacInnis, a nurse at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston, testified before the committee last week that under Steward’s management, patients were exposed to avoidable harm and even death, especially in understaffed emergency departments.
She also said that Steward once failed to pay a supplier who provided funeral boxes for the remains of newborn babies who had died and had to be taken to the mortuary.
“Nurses were forced to put the remains of babies in cardboard shipping boxes,” she said. “These nurses pooled their own money and went to Amazon to buy the funeral boxes.”