2 charged for handling of virus outbreak at veterans home

BOSTON (AP) — Two former administrators of a Massachusetts veterans home where nearly 80 people sickened by the coronavirus died have been charged for their handling of the outbreak, the state's attorney general said Friday.

It's believed to be the first criminal case in the country brought against nursing home officials for actions taken during the pandemic, Attorney General Maura Healey said.

Former Holyoke Soldiers' Home Superintendent Bennett Walsh and former Medical Director Dr. David Clinton were indicted by a grand jury on charges stemming from their decision in March to combine two dementia units, packing residents who were COVID-19 positive into the same space as those with no symptoms, Healey said.

The veterans "risked their lives from the beaches of Normandy, to some the jungles of Vietnam and to know that they died under the most horrific circumstances is truly shocking," Healey told reporters.

A phone message was left Friday with a lawyer for Walsh. An email was sent to attorneys for Clinton. They could each face prison time if convicted of charges of causing or permitting serious bodily injury or neglect of an elder, Healey said.

The charges come three months after a scathing independent report said “utterly baffling” decisions made by Walsh and other administrators allowed the virus to spread there unchecked. The “worst decision” was to combine the two locked dementia units, both of which already housed some residents with the virus, said investigators led by former federal prosecutor Mark Pearlstein.

Healey said Walsh and Clinton were the ones ultimately responsible for the decision to combine the two units, which she said led to “tragic and deadly results.” More than 40 veterans were packed into a single unit that usually had 25 beds, and space was so limited that nine veterans —...