Judge threatens to hold AdventHealth in contempt over records on embattled guardian Rebecca Fierle

By Monivette Cordeiro

A judge has threatened to hold AdventHealth officials in contempt of court, writing that the Central Florida hospital company failed to hand over records related to its financial relationship with Rebecca Fierle, the former professional guardian currently under criminal investigation.

Circuit Judge Janet C. Thorpe ordered AdventHealth on July 10 to produce documents involving Fierle. During a hearing the next day, an attorney for the hospital system told the judge that AdventHealth paid the court-appointed guardian to provide services for roughly 50 patients — an arrangement which was not disclosed to the court.

In an order dated Tuesday, Thorpe wrote that AdventHealth had only “partially complied” with her order to produce the documents, which were to be given to Wynter A. Solomon-Cuthbert, a court monitor assigned to investigate the disgraced guardian.

The hospital company still had not given Solomon-Cuthbert all checks and invoices for payments made to Fierle and her various business entities, Thorpe’s order said. AdventHealth also failed to provide a list “of all patients receiving services from Rebecca Fierle, referred to by AdventHealth as 'permanent’ or 'forever’ patients,” the judge wrote.

“You are hereby ordered, within 5 days of entry [of] this order, to submit the listed documents ... or to show cause why you should not be held in contempt for failing to do so,” Thorpe wrote, emphasizing the contempt threat in bold type.

Court records show Thorpe set a hearing earlier in August to let AdventHealth explain why the company should not be held in contempt for failing to comply with her order from July. A transcript of that hearing, which was not publicly noticed in advance, was not immediately available.

AdventHealth spokesman Bryan Malenius told the Orlando Sentinel the company had complied with Thorpe’s orders.

“We have responded to all requests from the court and are in the process of re-sending and providing additional documents the court has requested,” Malenius said.

He said the hospital company uses the term “forever patients” to describe “patients who have no family or friends willing to assume guardianship, and as an absolute last resort, a professional guardian may be appointed by the court.”

During the July 11 hearing, AdventHealth attorney Troy A. Kishbaugh told Thorpe the company thought it should not be responsible for paying private guardians, who are typically compensated for their time from their clients’ funds or by the state.

“You shouldn’t be,” Thorpe told him, according to the transcript. “All payments to guardians come through the court based on the statutes. ... I haven’t seen your payments come through to me.”

“They don’t,” Kishbaugh responded.

“That’s a problem, sir,” the judge said.

A review by the Orange County Comptroller’s office of 30 of Fierle’s cases found the guardian appeared to have entered into a contract with AdventHealth without telling the judge — a potential violation of Florida law, which says guardians may not “have any interest, financial or otherwise, direct or indirect, in any business transaction or activity with the guardianship.”

The death of one of Fierle’s clients, 75-year-old Steven Stryker, sparked a scandal that has embroiled Florida’s guardianship program and led to increased scrutiny over how guardians are appointed to make legal, financial and medical decisions for minors and incapacitated adults, known as wards.

Stryker died at at a Tampa hospital after staff could not perform life-saving procedures because of a “do not resuscitate” order Fierle filed against his wishes, according to an investigation by the Okaloosa County Clerk of Circuit Court and Comptroller.

After details of the Stryker case came to light, Thorpe sought Fierle’s removal from all 95 cases the guardian then had pending in Orange County. Eighteen of those cases involved wards who were AdventHealth patients when petitions to place them under guardianship were filed, more than any other care provider, according to data compiled by the Sentinel.

Fierle, who is not currently facing charges and has resigned from all cases statewide, is the subject of a criminal investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and a separate Medicaid fraud probe by the state’s Office of Attorney General. Earlier this month, authorities found the cremated remains of nine people when they searched the Orlando office for Fierle’s business, Geriatric Management.

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Judge threatens to hold AdventHealth in contempt over records on embattled guardian Rebecca Fierle