\u201cThrough deceptive financial arrangements with related-party interests they owned, Hagler and Rozenberg inflated rent payments from the nursing homes to their property companies, intentionally understaffed both facilities, and diverted to themselves tens of millions of dollars in Medicaid funding intended to be used to care for vulnerable residents,\u201d the comptroller said in a scathing 53-page report on the operations of two nursing homes. \u201cThey furthered their scheme by hiding these actions through false state and federal filings that failed to disclose the extent and profitability of their scams.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report was chilling in its description of the sometimes-deadly shortcomings of the facilities.<\/p>\n
One Deptford resident who should have been on a pureed diet was served solid food anyway and died of asphyxiation, the report stated. Another resident, an amputee using a wheelchair, was discharged to a motel that immediately returned him because it couldn\u2019t accommodate a wheelchair. The next day, he was discharged again and deposited in front of a social services office before it opened, investigators said.<\/p>\n
According to the comptroller, more than 3,400 emergency calls were placed to Hammonton and Deptford police about the nursing homes from 2019 to 2024. <\/p>\n
\u201cVulnerable people suffered unnecessarily because the owners decided to put the money in their pockets instead of paying for the staff to care for them,\u201d said Acting State Comptroller Kevin Walsh.<\/p>\n
His office will seek to recover $123.9 million in Medicaid funding in addition to penalties.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Medicaid program, and taxpayers, paid for one thing\u2014a quality nursing home that provides quality care and allows residents to live in dignity\u2014but they got something else entirely\u2014a nursing home where residents were forced to survive deplorable conditions,\u201d the comptroller\u2019s report said. \u201cThe state and federal government did not get what they paid for; taxpayers are entitled to get the money back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attorneys for the nursing homes in a statement said that Hammonton Center and Deptford Center both maintain \u201cstrong, above-average quality measure ratings\u201d by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and play a vital role in serving their local communities. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe comptroller\u2019s report overlooks this reality and significantly misstates both the facts and the law,\u201d said Lee Vartan and Matthew Boxer, the lawyers who represent the facilities. \u201cWe look forward to addressing the report in the appropriate forum.\u201d<\/p>\n
An investigation earlier this year by NJ Advance Media and its sister newsrooms across the country found that the use of side businesses with related or even overlapping owners has become widespread. While legal, advocates say it often blurs where the money went, although in some cases, critics say operators have siphoned funds intended for resident care to their personal and business interests.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey use management entities to get money out of the facility and into the owners\u2019 pockets,\u201d said Mark Davis an elder care attorney in New Jersey who noted that nursing homes often pay inflated costs to those related companies.<\/p>\n
The Deptford Center and the Hammonton Center came under scrutiny by the comptroller<\/a> last year in the wake of charges by New York Attorney General Letitia James. She accused the owners of siphoning $83 million in Medicare and Medicaid funding from nursing homes to enrich themselves, their relatives and associates. <\/p>\n
![\"Acting](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/TD2NWRCP7NABVEAQMA7HIPLW2E.jpg\")
Acting State Comptroller Kevin Walsh at Wednesday’s live-streamed press briefing on his office’s investigation into two South Jersey nursing homes.NJ Advance Media<\/p>\n