Nursing Home Charged With Abuse, Fraud

Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said Wednesday that a Hollywood nursing home has been charged with elderly abuse and Medi-Cal fraud, and that the owners stole more than $39,000 from a Holocaust survivor.

He also said that a Glendale nursing home has been charged with Medi-Cal fraud, adding that the actions are the first their kind by his office.

Operators of the facilities--Orchard Gables Convalescent Hospital in Hollywood and Happy Days Adult Health Care Center in Glendale--were arrested this week as a result of felony complaints filed against them, Lockyer said at a Los Angeles news conference.

The felony actions were brought by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elderly Abuse after 20 new investigators and prosecutors were added to the staff to combat abuse and neglect in nursing homes. A federal study found that one out of three nursing homes in California may have been guilty of substandard care.

Lockyer said the felony complaints were evidence that his office would prosecute cases of abuse of the elderly. “As public guardians, we have a responsibility to protect frail and elderly Californians who entrust their care to nursing homes,” he said.

In the complaint against Orchard Gables, nursing home owner Regina Mizrahie and daughter Lily Mizrahie were accused of elder abuse, embezzlement and defrauding the Medi-Cal program. A son, Leon Mizrahie, was accused of elder abuse, embezzlement, conspiracy to commit a crime and receiving stolen property.

The three are accused of stealing more than $39,000 from Betty Cahn, a Nazi camp survivor who was a patient at Orchard Gables. Authorities say that between 1994 and 1997, they took Cahn’s monthly reparation and pension checks from the German government, as well as her Social Security checks, and spent them. The funds were supposed to be deposited into her patient trust account, which was to pay for her care.

The complaint alleged that the reparation checks were diverted to the bank account of Leon Mizrahie’s auto repair shop. The 59-bed nursing home received some of the diverted funds to purchase items for the facility, including a big-screen TV set, medical equipment and hygiene products, the complaint said.

When she died in May 1997, Cahn, 97, had only $217 in her patient trust account, officials said.

“This is particularly egregious because she was already victimized once [by the Holocaust] in her life,” said Colin L. Wong, executive director of the Medi-Cal Fraud and Elderly Abuse Bureau.

Regina Mizrahie and her son and daughter could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.

In the other case, Ellen Zuzo and Gary I. Dubin, owners and operators of the Happy Days facility in Glendale, were accused of submitting more than 100 false and fraudulent Medi-Cal claims, totaling more than $20,000, between September 1999 and March of this year.

Calls to Happy Days seeking comment were unsuccessful. A recording said its telephones were no longer in service. On Wednesday the facility appeared closed.