The Filipina owner and a top administrator of a now-closed senior care facility in Castro Valley were charged Monday, March 9, with 14 counts of felony elder abuse, officials said.
Herminigilda Manuel, 58, the owner of the failed Valley Springs Manor facility, and administrator Edgar Babael, 46, allegedly abandoned residents at the home several days after the state Department of Social Services shut it down on Oct. 24, 2013 due to a number of licensing violations, authorities said.
Manuel was arrested Monday at San Francisco International Airport on her way back from a trip to the Philippines, said Kristin Ford, press secretary to California Attorney General Kamala Harris. An arrest warrant has been issued for Babael, while a date for Manuel’s arraignment has yet to be set, Ford said.
Manuel and Babael were charged in the Alameda County Superior Court. If convicted, they could face up to 17 years in prison and be fined $6,000 per count.
Efforts to reach representatives for the defendants were unsuccessful, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Two days after the state ordered the facility’s closing in 2013, paramedics and Alameda County sheriff’s deputies responded to emergency calls from the staff, which was struggling to take care of the 14 patients that remained.
A total of 13 patients were rescued by sheriff’s deputies that day, and a 14th who went missing on Oct. 25, 2013 was discovered several days later in San Jose.
Among staffers who stayed at the facility included a cook, Maurice Rowland, and janitor, Miguel Alvarez, who were both not trained to care for the residents but stayed because they felt bad for the patients. Sheriff’s Sgt. J.D. Nelson said the staff was not getting paid for staying.
“I didn’t know what was going on, but I couldn’t just leave them here,” Rowland told the Chronicle.
“It wasn’t going to kill me to stay with them for a couple of days,” Alvarez told San Jose Mercury News.
Both Rowland and Alvarez said Monday they were glad someone was being held accountable for the incident, the news publication reported.
This incident is not the first time Manuel has run into trouble with regulators. In 1999, she was forced to sell nursing homes in Castro Valley and Milpitas, when inspectors discovered she had drastically reduced staff and left patients bound to beds. Still, the state licensed her to operate in Valley Springs in 2008, and she was able to open two additional assisted living centers in Oakland and Modesto, according to the Chronicle.
After the state ordered the closing of Manuel’s facility in Valley Springs, they made a “judgement call” allowing the home to remain open for several more days so residents could be relocated, according to a state report.
The investigation into this incident was conducted jointly by the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, Ford said, according to Bay City News.
(With reports from Bay City News, San Jose Mercury News and San Francisco Chronicle)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Weekend March 14-17, 2015 Sec. A pg.1)
