Nursing home owner Bob Dean avoids prison time for deaths in botched evacuation

Nursing home owner Bob Dean, pictured here in a police booking photo after his 2022 arrest, pleaded no contest to criminal charges related to the deaths of seven residents of his facilities who were evacuated to a Tangipahoa Parish warehouse to ride out Hurricane Ida. (Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office photo)

A nursing home owner will not face prison time for the deaths of residents moved from seven of his facilities during their evacuation for Hurricane Ida, our partners with WVUE-TV Fox 8 report.

Bob Dean, 70, pleaded no contest Monday to 15 criminal charges related to the deaths of seven people who were among 840 placed in a Tangipahoa Parish warehouse to ride out the August 2021 storm. State health officials found the elderly and infirm residents in squalid conditions.

Many were placed on mattresses on the floor, or directly on the concrete surface itself, where floodwater had seeped inside. Inadequate staffing and unsanitary bathrooms and showers compounded issues, leading the Louisiana Department of Health to relocate displaced individuals to facilities around the state, creating communications and logistical problems for residents and their relatives in the aftermath of the hurricane.

Dean faced eight counts of cruelty to the infirmed, five counts of Medicaid fraud and two counts for obstruction of justice. Judge Brian Abels handed down prison sentences totaling 20 years at hard labor but deferred them in favor of placing Dean on probation for nine years.

Under Louisiana law , prison sentences for nonviolent felonies can be deferred. If the defendant completes their probation without problems, the felony conviction can be removed from their court record.

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Attorney General Liz Murrill shared her displeasure with the sentence, saying she had asked the judge to sentence Dean to at least five years in prison.

“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,” Murrill said in a statement.

Dean could still face civil consequences for the botched evacuation. Separate class action lawsuits have been filed in Jefferson and Orleans Parish, each with hundreds of plaintiffs.

Attorney Morris Bart, who represents plaintiffs in the Orleans case, said he was outraged by the sentence Dean received.

“I think it’s disgraceful. There’s no other way to say it,” Bart told Fox 8. “Here’s a man who caused the worst nursing home abuse in Louisiana history. Many of them died as a result of it. He cheated the U.S. Government out of Medicaid and with all of that, he doesn’t serve any time. He just gets probation. I just think it’s outrageous.”

The post Nursing home owner Bob Dean avoids prison time for deaths in botched evacuation appeared first on Louisiana Illuminator .