Senators examine bankruptcy of Steward Health Care
Lawmakers are intended to seek contempt proceedings against the Steward Health Care CEO after he defied a subpoena.
A Senate committee Thursday overwhelmingly approved two resolutions compelling testimony from a hospital executive who resisted a subpoena to address the lawmakers a week ago.
The panel is seeking civil and criminal action against Ralph de la Torre, the CEO of Steward Health Care, following a 20-0 vote on both resolutions, with one abstention. The senators approved a resolution seeking civil enforcement and a criminal contempt charge against the executive after he refused to appear before the committee under subpoena on Sept. 12.
Last week, de la Torre failed to appear before the bipartisan Senate committee to answer questions about the bankrupt hospital chain’s financial dealings. He told senators through his lawyer on Wednesday that he was invoking his Fifth Amendment right to avoid answering questions that could potentially incriminate him.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions passed two resolutions. One instructs the Senate’s counsel to file a federal civil lawsuit asking the court to require that de la Torre comply with the subpoena. The second resolution asks the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to prosecute de la Torre for his failure to appear before the committee.
In his letter Wednesday to Senate officials, an attorney representing de la Torre said the hospital CEO would exercise his right against self-incrimination rather than provide sworn testimony in a “pseudo-criminal proceeding.” De la Torre asserted through his lawyer that a federal court order prohibited him from discussing Steward’s finances due to ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.
The hospital chain filed for bankruptcy in May, closed two hospitals in Massachusetts and engineered deals to sell other facilities. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and others have questioned de la Torre’s lucrative compensation and purchases of a multimillion-dollar yacht and fishing boat even though the hospital chain struggled financially.
Steward Health Care was formed in 2010 when the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management acquired a struggling nonprofit hospital chain from the Archdiocese of Boston. The company aggressively expanded to a chain of more than 30 hospitals employing more than 30,000 people.
