Bob Dean Jr gets probation after pleading no contest to counts of cruelty to infirmed people and healthcare fraud
A Louisiana nursing home magnate who left 800 elderly residents to endure a potent hurricane inside a fetid warehouse has avoided prison time after choosing not to dispute the cruelty charges facing him.
Bob Dean Jr on Monday received three years of probation – along with about $2m in penalties, court costs and restitution – after pleading no contest to eight counts of cruelty to infirmed people, five of healthcare fraud and two of obstruction of justice.
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| An undated image provided by the Tangipahoa parish sheriff’s office of Bob Dean Jr. Photograph: AP |
Dean entered his plea at a state courthouse in Amite City, Louisiana, about three years after several deaths during Hurricane Ida in 2021 were linked to the storage facility at the center of the case against him.
Louisiana’s state attorney general, Liz Murrill, said prosecutors had unsuccessfully asked Judge Brian Abels to sentence Dean to least five years imprisoned and not “only probation”. Abels technically handed Dean a 20-year prison sentence but deferred it in its entirety in favor of probation.
“Our prosecutors urged that Mr Dean be held accountable for his actions, which led to the deaths of numerous elderly individuals,” Murrill said in a statement. “I respect our judicial system and that the judge has the ultimate discretion over the appropriate sentence, but I remain of the opinion that Dean should be serving prison time.”
Abels said the 70-year-old Dean’s age, lack of prior criminal convictions and the amount he had to repay all factored into his sentence, according to a report from the CBS affiliate WWL Louisiana.
The outlet added that family members of people who died at the warehouse addressed Abels through tears Monday, saying they never got a chance to say goodbye to loved ones who were left to die at the facility.
Dean sent 843 residents of seven Louisiana nursing homes to a squalid, former pesticide plant in the town of Independence, about 70 miles (110km) north-west of New Orleans, to ride out Ida as the category 4 storm took aim at the region.
With winds of about 150 miles (241km) an hour, Ida caused widespread power outages and other devastation across south-east Louisiana in August 2021. Residents of Dean’s nursing homes were later found sleeping on mattresses atop a wet floor – without access to their medicines, sobbing and lying in their own feces.
Warehouse conditions devolved after the failure of generators meant to provide electricity to the facility. Indoor temperatures soared to dangerous levels, prompting warnings from caretakers that Dean ignored.
The ceiling leaked, toilets overflowed and there was not enough food or water for residents who were packed in so closely it was impossible to comply with social distancing guidelines in effect at the time because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Officials ultimately linked five of the 26 deaths that occurred in Louisiana because of Ida to the warehouse in question. Ensuing investigations determined Dean had billed the federal Medicaid program for dates his residents were not receiving care, refused to move clients out of the warehouse and “engaged in conduct intended to intimidate or obstruct public health officials and law enforcement”.
Dean later lost his licenses and federal funding to operate his nursing homes. And in June 2022, prosecutors filed the criminal charges to which he later pleaded no contest.
Though Abels said Dean had no history of criminal convictions, the case resolved on Monday was far from Dean’s only recent legal issue.
Notably, he also grappled with several lawsuits from families of those left in the Independence warehouse.
About three months after authorities charged him, attorneys for the plaintiffs announced a $12m settlement with Dean. A February 2023 report from the Louisiana news outlet nola.com reported that the families had not gotten any settlement payments, which average about $10,000 per nursing home at the warehouse after accounting for attorneys’ fees and other costs.
Elsewhere, Georgia authorities charged Dean with criminal conduct after he shot his thumb off there – and Oregon officials scrutinized him after cattle from his ranch in that state needed to be rescued from a snowstorm, nola.com also reported.
Dean’s attorney, J Garrison Jordan, told nola.com that his client’s plea and sentence Monday were “a fair disposition of the case, and everybody has closure”.
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Nursing home owner who left 800 people in warehouse during Hurricane Ida avoids jail time
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