A day after an attorney wrote that Steward Health Care’s CEO won’t be at a congressional hearing next week despite being subpoenaed, lawmakers said they’re working on a contempt citation against the embattled leader.
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey told reporters Thursday that he and Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-VT, are putting together a bipartisan plan to vote on a contempt citation against Ralph de la Torre, who they say is ultimately responsible for Steward’s failure.
Markey and Sanders, boisterous critics of da la Torre, lead the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which voted in July to launch a Congressional investigation into what led Steward to file for bankruptcy protections this past May.
That vote also included subpoenaing on-the-record testimony from de la Torre.
But on Wednesday, de la Torre’s attorney Alexander J. Merton wrote a letter to Sanders, highlighting how the CEO is prohibited from speaking on his company’s behalf regarding any “bankruptcy-related issues,” per a federal court order.
An independent subcommittee of Steward’s board of managers established last December has been delegated to speak on the ongoing issues instead of de la Torre, Merton wrote.
The hearing will be held next Thursday no matter what, Markey said. An empty chair will be visible that would have been for de la Torre, continuing a pattern that started in April when de la Torre didn’t offer voluntary testimony at a senate committee field hearing in Boston.
“We will have witnesses that come from the affected communities who will sit in their chairs to testify,” Markey said. “This time not in the Massachusetts State House but in the Capitol of the United States so his story could be told across our country.”
The HELP Committee could vote on a criminal contempt citation against de la Torre which could lead to a trial and jail time or a civil charge that would result in fines until he appears. Both would need Senate approval to go through.
This has been a big week amid the Steward crisis that has rattled Massachusetts’ healthcare system the entire year.
A federal bankruptcy court judge on Wednesday approved the Dallas-based healthcare company’s plan to sell its six Bay State hospitals – St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, Morton Hospital in Taunton, Holy Family Hospital facilities in Methuen and Haverhill, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton and St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton.
Steward closed its other two Massachusetts facilities, Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, last Saturday.
“Unfortunately, while Dr. de la Torre has continued to fight for Steward hospitals and the patients and communities they serve,” Merton wrote in his letter to Sanders, “members of this Committee continue to cast aspersions on Dr. de la Torre and appear determined to turn the hearing into a pseudo-criminal proceeding in which they use the time, not to gather facts, but to convict Dr. de la Torre in the eyes of public opinion.”
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren took exception to that comment, especially the “pseudo-criminal proceeding” dubbing.
Speaking to reporters alongside Markey and other leaders, Warren referenced a report earlier this week from the Globe Spotlight Team that found several instances in which de la Torre allegedly dipped into Steward’s bank accounts for his gain.
Some expenditures include the CEO securing a multimillion-dollar apartment and traveling on corporate jets to “far-flung vacation destinations,” the Globe reported.
“It is entirely possible that Mr. de la Torre’s looting of Steward may have involved significant criminal activity, but that is not an excuse for ignoring a subpoena,” Warren said. “Congress has questions to ask, and if Mr. de la Torre believes the answers will put him at risk for going to jail, he can take the Fifth Amendment right out in public for everyone to see.”
Ellen MacInnis, a registered nurse at St. Elizabeth’s and a board member of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, urged the lawmakers to make good on their vows to hold de la Torre accountable.
“While he sailed on his yachts, flew in his jets, vacationed around the world,” MacInnis said, “those of us in the trenches of his depleted and embattled hospitals were forced to care for patients in understaffed units with broken and missing equipment, missing supplies.”
“Nurses brought in their own food to feed diabetic patients at night when the kitchen was closed and we had no options,” she added. “An innocent young mother died because the piece of equipment that could have saved her life had been repossessed by an unpaid vendor.”
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