Walsh, Clinton charged in connection with COVID-19 outbreak

Sept. 29, 2020 | Danielle Eaton
daniellee@thereminder.com

Attorney General Maura Healey announced criminal charges against former Superintendent of the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, Bennett Walsh, and former Medical Examiner, David Clinton, in connection with the deadly COVID-19 outbreak that took place at the Home in late March and early April.
Photo credit:?Attorney General Maura Healey

HOLYOKE –  Former Holyoke Soldiers’ Home Superintendent Bennett Walsh and former Medical Examiner David Clinton will face charges for their alleged role in the death of veterans at the Home due to the coronavirus.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced the charges on Sept. 25 first to family members of veterans who had been impacted by the outbreak in late March via a Zoom call. She said while “there’s no way to put a price on a life or bring back somebody they love,” she hoped the families impacted by the tragedy were “pleased to see this action today.”

Immediately following the Zoom call, Healey announced the criminal charges to members of the public via a virtual press conference. The charges, she explained, were the “result of an extensive investigation” by her office that was launched in April. Managing attorney Kevin Lownds, who also oversees the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Division, said during the course of the investigation the office spoke with “over 90 family members” of veterans that had been impacted during the outbreak.     Lownds said the office also spoke with anyone who contacted the office regarding the investigation, and said interviews “were instrumental in pursuing the case.”

Healy said the investigation was a priority and her office “owed it to the families who lost loved ones” and the veterans who lost their lives. “They risked their lives from the beaches of Normandy to the, some, the jungles of Vietnam. To know they died under the most horrific circumstances is truly shocking,” she said.

Healey said the grand jury indictments were returned during the afternoon of Sept. 24, allowing her office to proceed. Both Walsh and Clinton are each charged with five counts of criminal neglect and five counts of serious bodily injury. Healey said a single charge of criminal neglect carries a prison sentence of up to three years, while a single charge of serious bodily injury carries a sentence of up to 10 years.

“We are alleging that Walsh and Clinton were ultimately responsible for a decision on March 27 that led to tragic and deadly results,” she said.

While Healey said she was limited as to what she could say, due to the nature of the ongoing investigation, she shared details as to what led the Attorney General’s Office to pursue such criminal charges.

The first of the alleged decisions that led to criminal charges being brought was the choice made to combine two dementia units into one. This, Healey said, led to symptomatic veterans or veterans who had tested positive for the coronavirus being “placed within feet of asymptomatic residents, exposing those residents further to the virus.”

She said, “To think about this now, knowing how contagious and deadly this virus is, and continues to be, is most disturbing, and the alleged details are even worse.”

Healey alleged that the decision to combine the two units, led to “42 veterans, some COVID positive and others not even showing any symptoms of COVID, into a single unit that usually accommodates 25 beds.” Additionally, she said “the Home decided to put six or seven veterans in rooms that were meant to only hold four people.”

Furthermore, Healey alleged “because there wasn’t enough space in these overcrowded rooms for all veterans, the home placed nine beds in a dining room.” She said of the veterans that had been placed in the dining hall, “some of the residents in the dining room had symptoms of COVID-19, some did not.”

“The beds of these veterans in the dining room were just a few feet apart from each other and next to the room where confirmed positive residents were located. Residents in the unit were mingling together, regardless of their COVID-19 status,” she said. “We allege this should have never happened. It never should have happened from an infection control standpoint. This decision put veterans that were asymptomatic at a greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and at a higher risk of death.”

While a total of 76 lives were lost at the home due to the virus, Healey said the charges were in connection to five veterans who had been moved into the dining room. Of these veterans, she said, two of them had not contracted the virus, and three had contracted the coronavirus, one of whom ultimately succumbed to COVID-19.

Healey said of the veterans who contracted the virus after being moved, all “were not showing symptoms of COVID before being moved into that unit.” She called the choice to move the veterans to the hall, “a decision that increased their risk of exposure and of harm and death.”

In a statement to Reminder Publishing, Walsh’s attorney and uncle, William Bennett, said he was being used as a scapegoat and “has spent his entire life in the service of our country, first in active duty in the Marine Corps for 24 years, and then serving other veterans as the superintendent of the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home.”

“It is unfortunate that the attorney general is blaming the effects of a deadly virus that our state and federal governments have not been able to stop on Bennett Walsh,” Bennett said. He continued, and said, “He, like other nursing home administrators throughout the Commonwealth and nation, could not prevent the virus from coming to the Home or stop its spread once it arrived there.”

Bennett said that Walsh “relied on medical professionals to do what was best for the veterans” at all times, despite “the tragic circumstances of a virus in a home with veterans in close quarters, severe staffing shortages, and the lack of outside help from state officials.”

“The attorney general should not be scapegoating Mr. Walsh, who was on the front lines trying his best to do whatever he could to help the veterans of the Holyoke Soldiers Home, including asking for help from state officials and the National Guard, which arrived much too late,” Bennett said.

When questioned why charges were brought against Walsh and Clinton, and not other staff or leadership members at the Home, Healey said it was due to the fact that “they were the ultimate decision makers responsible for the deadly decision” to combine units. However, she said “if new evidence comes to light, then we will pursue it,” however the charges they were seeking against the men was “based on evidence that we have right now.”

The charges brought against Walsh and Clinton are the first of their kind and marks the “first criminal case in the country against those in nursing homes in the pandemic.” While she couldn’t speak on other active, ongoing investigations, Healey confirmed there were, in fact “active and ongoing investigations into a number of facilities across the state” where there were a high number of deaths or positive COVID-19 cases. She did not say if she expected those cases to also result in criminal charges being brought forth.

She also said she, as well as affected families, supported future reforms regarding nursing homes. She touched on this briefly when asked if she felt that Walsh had been qualified to run the Home despite not being a licensed nursing home administrator and having no long term care experience. When asked if she believed that administrators at long-term care facilities should be licensed, Healey said, “Absolutely, this should have been the case in the first place.”

Healey said she did not believe Walsh had been qualified to serve in the position of superintendent of the Home. “No, I think this criminal case demonstrates that he was clearly not qualified to hold this position,” she said.

Walsh and Clinton will be arraigned on the charges at the Hampden County Superior Court in Springfield at a later date.

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