Spring Hill Man accused of abusing mother who was found malnourished, with rotting sores

Investigators discovered two days after the arrest that Russell's mother died. Upgraded charges are pending.

Author: S.G. de León y León

SPRING HILL, Fla. — The Hernando County Sheriff's Office arrested a 47-year-old man from Spring Hill after investigators said his elderly mother “was found with multiple open sores, covered in her own feces and urine, and infested with maggots.”

Jason Russell now faces charges of neglect of his elderly mother as well as causing great bodily harm. Russell is also facing charges for resisting an officer without violence.

Investigators say Russell called 911 on Thursday after his 79-year-old mother became unresponsive in the home they shared on Boyce Street.

Hernando County Fire Rescue arrived to find Russell in the driveway with his mother in a wheelchair. According to the sheriff's office, Russell refused to let medical personnel inside the home to check what medications his mother was taking.

The woman was transported to the hospital, where doctors said she was “malnourished, septic from multiple sources of infection, had pneumonia in her right lung, a urinary tract infection, and had areas of her skin that were rotting from infection,” investigators said.

Deputies arrived at Russell’s home and declared it a crime scene. They said Russell was arrested after he knowingly entered an active crime scene after being told to stay outside.

According to the sheriff’s office, deputies found two heavily soiled couches covered in ants and flies inside the home. They also reportedly found soiled women’s clothing by a bedside commode and a strong odor of ammonia.

Investigators say Russell, who was his mother’s primary caregiver, told them he bathed his mother by dipping her in the pool or wiping her with a cloth.

Russell was taken to the Hernando County Detention Center, where he is being held without bond, due to the domestic nature of the offense and because Russell was already out on bond for a DUI, the sheriff’s office said.

Two days after Russell's arrest, detectives learned that his mother had died. They are working with the medical examiner and the state attorney's office to consider upgraded charges.

According to the Florida Department of Children and Families, the state requires reporting known or suspected abuse, neglect, abandonment, exploitation, or self-neglect of vulnerable adults (elderly or disabled).

You can report abuse online or call the abuse hotline at 1-800-962-2873.

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Spring Hill Man accused of abusing mother who was found malnourished, with rotting sores

Genesee County man facing elder abuse charges, accused of abusing mother

by Jamie Sherrod, James Paxson

A case of elder abuse leading to charges against a 50-year-old Genesee County man and authorities say this was a preventable tragedy.

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Officers were called to Hurley Medical Center for a 72-year-old woman who was admitted for a few days. The Genesee County Sheriff’s Office said the woman had a broken femur and hip, was septic, and ultimately died.

Her 50-year-old son, Michael Lagueux, was with her. When investigators spoke with Lagueux, there were inconsistencies and contradictions with his statements, the sheriff's office said.

Deputies executed a search warrant at his house in Genesee Township. Investigators found the home in deplorable conditions with spoiled food, black mold, and beg bugs, the sheriff's office said.

As disturbing as the case is, authorities say they encounter this problem often.

“A lot of our elderly tend to trust a lot more than they should, and that’s one of their biggest weaknesses unfortunately,” Sgt. Nick Walleman said.

That weakness often leads to elder abuse. Walleman has overseen the Genesee County Elder Abuse Task Force over the past year and said it happens more than you would think.

“I have cases coming in every day,” Walleman said.

Among the recent ones, a 72-year-old severely injured woman who died at Hurley in Flint. The case leading investigators to the home of her son, 50-year-old Michael Lagueux.

At the home they found his cousin a 43-year-old woman who also is a vulnerable adult. Lagueux is now facing two charges of abuse of a vulnerable adult.

Walleman said the cases can physical abuse, neglect and even financial fraud. The victims are usually targeted by family members or scammers.

“One of the newest scams claiming you win $5,000 or $7,000 a week for life. “These people are calling our elderly and they’re telling them send us a thousand dollars you’ll be able to get your millions,” Wallemen said.

Walleman said to pay attention to that little voice inside telling you when something isn't right.

“Be careful who you trust and who you’re going to give your power of attorney to things like that,” Wallemen said.

Victims can find help through the Elder Abuse Task Force which fights the exploitation of Genesee County seniors.

“We’re here to be that voice and their justice when they do get taken advantage of,” Walleman said.

Those who do target the elderly will face consequences.

“Fines, they are getting some jail time,” Walleman said.

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Genesee County man facing elder abuse charges, accused of abusing mother

My mother died of COVID-19 in a nursing home — now I’m fighting back

By Alexa Rivera

Alexa Rivera is suing a Long Island nursing home after it fatally exposed her mother to COVID-19 -- owing to Gov. Cuomo's order that all hospital patients be admitted. Tamara Beckwith/New York Post

Alexa Rivera, a 47-year-old construction estimator living in Brooklyn, lost her mother, Ana Celia Martinez, 78, after she was exposed to COVID-19 at Our Lady of Consolation nursing facility in West Islip, Long Island. Rivera is now suing the nursing home and has started the organization Voices For Seniors, which advocates for other families who’ve lost their loved ones to the coronavirus in nursing homes. Here, she tells the story behind her suit …

When we brought my mother to Our Lady of Consolation Nursing & Rehabilitative Care Center for physical therapy in January, staffers told us they’d keep her safe. Instead, they gave her COVID-19, kept us in the dark and sent her to the hospital when it was too late.

My mother had a knee-replacement operation in August 2019, which went very well at first, but her recovery didn’t go as smoothly as we anticipated. A few months later, we decided she needed in-patient care and admitted her to Our Lady of Consolation. We were initially impressed by a large sign in their lobby stating that it “was the best nursing home on Long Island.” This gave us a false sense of security as we wanted nothing but the best for our mom.

She was supposed to come home by mid-February. But as her discharge dragged on, the state locked down to stop the spread of the coronavirus and my mother was forced to stay where she was. Two weeks later, she was telling us she had a fever. She said she had body aches, diarrhea. Attendants at the nursing home told me and my sister, Vivian, “We’re checking everyone’s temperature. Your mother is healthy.” Shortly after that, my mother couldn’t talk. The next few days, whenever we called her, we couldn’t get through. When Vivian reached my mother’s social worker at the nursing home, she was told, “Your mother is fine. I asked your mother if she wanted to talk to you, and she said no.”

That’s when we knew something was wrong. My mother always wanted to talk to us.

Author Alexa Rivera with her mother, Ana Celia Martinez, on her 70th birthday.Courtesy of the family

A few days later, the nursing home tried to discharge her. The medical director said, “I can send your mother home with an oxygen tank.”

I said, “My mother didn’t go there with an oxygen tank. You’re going to find out what’s wrong with her.”

He said, “You want us to take her to the hospital?” I said yes.

That night they sent her to the Good Samaritan Hospital, which is just 50 feet away from the nursing facility. By the next morning my mother had a collapsed lung, and the day after her kidneys failed. That night, we got a call from the attending doctors at the ICU, who told us our mother had died because of COVID.

Hearing that, I just broke down. I collapsed on the floor, crying. I begged God to take me instead.

Later I found out that Gov. Cuomo had mandated state nursing homes take patients from hospitals, even without testing them for COVID. Our Lady of Consolation had been a revolving door; so far, they have reported 40 deaths due to COVID.

In short, my mother died because Cuomo wanted to free up hospital beds. But he had the USS Comfort and the Jacob Javits Center for COVID-positive patients — why didn’t he send them there?

In June, my sister and I hired an attorney, who found out that Our Lady of Consolation has been cited more than 30 times for negligence and other violations, including the failure to properly maintain an infection prevention and control program, as recently as September 2019. We immediately filed a lawsuit against the nursing home at the Brooklyn Supreme Court. [A spokesperson for Our Lady of Consolation told The Post in an e-mail, “We cannot comment on pending litigation or the care provided to any individual. Catholic Health Services and Our Lady of Consolation Nursing & Rehabilitative Care Center are dedicated to delivering high quality, compassionate care which is integral to our mission. We strongly deny any improper treatment.”]

Alexa Rivera (left) and her sister, Vivian, have started a Facebook group, Voices for Seniors, encouraging others who’ve lost loved ones to COVID in nursing homes to advocate for their rights.

Vivian and I have now started a Facebook page called Voices For Seniors, encouraging others who’ve lost loved ones to COVID in nursing homes to advocate for their rights. So far, we’ve participated in a few legislative hearings and held a few rallies, and our group is almost 4,000-strong, with state chapters in New Jersey, Arizona and Michigan. We also created a Spanish chapter called Voces Para Ancianos.

We’re seeking reform for all seniors, including veterans who died in droves. We also want to know the actual count of nursing-home deaths across New York state. They’re still saying 6,600, but we know it’s much more. Our families deserve this information. No amount of money will bring my mother back. What I want is accountability.

Gov. Cuomo insisted on sending COVID-positive patients into nursing homes — a move that he himself described as “fire to dry grass.” Cuomo’s mandate left a path of destruction, broken hearts and broken families that will never be the same. He has failed us, he has failed the elderly who voted for him, and there has to be some responsibility for that.

I feel robbed of my mother. Her grandchildren loved her. She played video games with my nephews, she played princess dress-up with my niece, she played cards and did puzzles with all of us. I know she had more life to live. And she would still be here if the nursing home had protected her — rather than exposing her to a fatal disease while not doing enough to save her.

 

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My mother died of COVID-19 in a nursing home — now I’m fighting back

Woman whose mom died of COVID-19 in Crestview assisted living center: ‘What good did it do to keep me out?’

By Wendy Victora

CRESTVIEW -- On a day in early March, Johnnie Kay Ealum and her mom, Patsy Poss, colored pictures together at the assisted living facility where Poss had lived since November.

Poss, who was almost 88, liked to color. She liked it when her daughter sang to her and played the piano. She couldn’t remember how to sing or even her daughter’s name, but she’d hum along and had a new name for her daughter, one she could remember.

She called her “Pretty.”

“To her, I was the probably the most beautiful thing in the world,” Ealum said.

Poss, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease 15 years earlier, had been in a slow decline for years.

Pretty would be the last intelligible word Ealum heard her mom speak.

“I love you” and “We can’t give up” were her last sentences, offered during a surprisingly lucid conversation on Mother’s Day.

Both were over the phone as Ealum struggled to maintain contact with her mom after visitors were shut out of Shoal Creek Rehabilitation Center in mid-March. The same thing was happening around the state and the country, as officials struggled to protect the elderly and infirm, particularly those in assisted living facilities.

But in Poss’s case, they failed, Ealum said

Not only did her mother contract the coronavirus, but also lived the last months of her life alone and confused. By the time she died Saturday, she’d lost all connection with reality, spending her days agitated and yelling gibberish.

“What good did it to to keep my mama from me?” Ealum said. “She ended up dying from somebody else giving it to her. I tested negative. I would not have given my mama COVID.

“Somehow COVID got into that facility.”

Ealum had always promised her parents that she would never put them in a facility. She did her best to keep that promise, making sure her mother was cared for 24/7 as the older woman lost the ability to follow simple commands. She poured her tea on her food, sat down where there was no chair and stayed up all night talking.

By late 2019, Ealum knew she could no longer continue to keep her mother safe at home.

Making what she says was the most difficult decision of her life, she placed Poss at the facility in Crestview. Five or six times a week, Ealum drove from DeFuniak Springs to visit.

That decision transformed Ealum from a full-time caregiver back into a daughter. Her mother seemed content. It worked as long as they could still spend time together.

But on March 12, the day after they colored together, Ealum got the call that family members were no longer allowed to visit.

“I didn’t know that was my last time to do anything with her,” Ealum said.

The next months were difficult and frustrating. Ealum tried talking to her mother on the phone, but her mother couldn’t concentrate. They tried Zoom once, but Ealum was confused by it and the nursing home staff had to prompt her responses.

In mid-May, Ealum’s sister, Joy, died unexpectedly. Ealum got the call in the middle of the night and all she wanted to do was talk to her mama. Instead, she called the nurses’s station and sobbed.

“I just babbled to the nurse, ‘I can’t talk to my mama,’” Ealum said. “She said, ‘Honey, I’m the closest thing you’ve got right now.’”

Although Poss was never told about her Joy’s death, Ealum believes she sensed it. From that point on, she spiraled rapidly into full-blown dementia.

It got so bad by the end of May that nurses dressed Ealum in full personal protection equipment and brought her in to try to calm Poss. As she sang, her mother quieted. But when Ealum stopped, and as she walked out the facility’s doors, she could hear her mother wailing again.

She wouldn’t see her again until July 15, the day after her mother’s COVID test came back positive.

By then, there was nothing anyone could do. Nothing left to protect her mother from. Ealum was allowed to visit her mom, as long as she was covered from head to toe in protective clothing.

She held her mother’s hand wearing plastic gloves.

“She opened her eyes to me and she moved her hand and she squeezed my hand,” Ealum said. “I sang to her. I believe she knew I was there.”

Two days later, Ealum went back.

“I told her goodbye. I started down the hallway. I turned around and went back in. she opened her eyes. I told her I loved her and that she was going to be OK, and I was too,” she said. “That it was her time.”

Twenty-four hours later, Poss was gone.

As of Monday, the facility where her mother died had 53 active cases of the virus among patients and another 15 among staff, according to the state’s COVID report.

In the days since her mother’s death, Ealum is grieving the loss of the woman who’d loved to laugh, who’d stayed home to raise five children, who could cook anything and who tried to take care of her husband even after she was no longer able to care for herself.

And she’s angry.

Ealum believes her mother died of a broken heart every bit as much as she died of COVID. She died wondering why she had been forgotten and abandoned. She died without the comfort of human touch and the power of feeling loved.

Poss had long ago signed documents giving Ealum the power of attorney over her affairs, including her medical care.

In those last months, Poss had no voice. She literally couldn’t understand words or speak them. She needed Ealum more than ever, both as her daughter and as her medical advocate.

“I understand the need to protect the elderly. I understand what COVID is. I understand they’re a vulnerable population. There has to be some kind of measure that we take to protect them,” she said.

But that measure should include access to loved ones.

“If they can screen workers and vendors that come and go every day, family members can do the same thing. If our parents are possibly going to get sick and, God forbid, die then what good has it done to protect them behind closed doors?”

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Woman whose mom died of COVID-19 in Crestview assisted living center: ‘What good did it do to keep me out?’