Three men running a group of nursing homes in New Jersey will be barred from being Medicaid providers after an investigation by the state comptroller’s office found that they were funneling millions of dollars into their personal accounts and other businesses while severely neglecting vulnerable residents in their care.
A report released Thursday by the comptroller’s office documented “glaring failures” including unsanitary conditions, medical neglect and abuse at one of the nursing homes, South Jersey Extended Care in Bridgeton. The home, along with another operated by the men, Sterling Manor in Maple Shade, has repeatedly received a one-star rating from the federal government.
The men who operated those homes and several others — Mordechay Weisz, Steven Krausman and Michael Konig — gave contracts to companies they had stakes in, inflated prices in the process, and then failed to provide the promised goods and services, endangering residents, the report said.
“They profited on the despair of people who wanted better care but had no way to get it, and the money flowed in,” said Kevin Walsh, the acting state comptroller.
Reports from state inspections at South Jersey Extended Care described a fly-ridden bedroom that reeked of urine, a dirty refrigerator and a toilet that had been broken for days. An inspector once found that a nurse’s aide had locked a resident with dementia in a bedroom by tying the door closed with a trash bag.
The comptroller’s report also cited allegations of abuse, including an instance in which a staff member was said to have “roughly handled” a resident in a wheelchair, who fell out and was hospitalized with an abdominal injury.
