Senators expected to hold Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre in contempt

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CBS News

Updated on: September 12, 2024 / 7:46 PM EDT


Lawmakers will vote to hold Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre in contempt of Congress next week after he declined to appear at a hearing Thursday on Capitol Hill where he was subpoenaed to testify. "If someone shows contempt for the people of the United States by not coming to testify both to potentially clear his name, but also to give them insight, then that is a contemptible thing," Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the ranking Republican member of the Senate committee investigating Steward, told CBS News ahead of Thursday's hearing.

The company, which had owned more than three dozen hospitals across eight states, declared bankruptcy earlier this year and has been struggling to find buyers for its facilities. Last week, de la Torre's attorney wrote to the committee, saying his client would "not participate" in the hearing, asserting the testimony needed to be postponed until after Steward's bankruptcy proceedings were resolved.

The committee's chairman, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, refused to postpone the hearing, where lawmakers also heard from health care workers and local officials in communities impacted by Steward's bankruptcy. or nearly two years, a CBS News investigation has documented how private equity investors and de la Torre extracted hundreds of millions of dollars while health care workers and patients struggled to get the life-saving supplies they needed.

Last month, the company closed two Massachusetts hospitals, leaving about 1,200 workers jobless, according to the state. The decision to compel de la Torre's testimony is extremely rare — the last subpoena issued by the committee occurred in the 1980s. Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a member of the committee, said he considers de la Torre to be "a fugitive on the run."

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/steward-health-care-ceo-ralph-de-la-torre-senate-contempt/

[Lonestarblue]

1. De la Torre is a perfect example of how private equity CEOs and managers are destroying healthcare.

We badly need universal healthcare and true nonprofit hospitals (unlike the Catholic hospitals that get tax advantages but have billions to invest in buying more hospitals where they can refuse care for women).

[UpInArms]

2. Is this the same guy?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Torres

Torres and his wife, First Lady Diann Torres, were criticized for costing the government $24,297 on a trip to Montana. The trip, conducted from June 23 to July 2, 2017, involved stops in both Oregon and Idaho.[11] In February 2018, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that Torres and his family have received millions of dollars in payments from Hong Kong-based Imperial Pacific casino.[12]

On November 7, 2019, the FBI executed a search and seizure warrant to raid Torres's office, home, and car as well as his brothers' law firm and various other businesses across Saipan for evidence of wire fraud, schemes to defraud, conspiracy, money laundering, and illegal campaign contributions.[13]

In November 2019, the Northern Mariana Islands House of Representatives called for the impeachment of Torres amid an ongoing investigation by the FBI into his businesses.[14] Torres faced further impeachment backlash with growing evidence of the misuse of local funds that violated CNMI procurement laws.[15][16] As of 12 January 2022, Ralph Torres is the second governor to have been impeached in the CNMI's history. [17] In May 2022, Torres was acquitted of all charges by the Senate in his impeachment trial.[18]

National politics

On March 11, 2016, Torres endorsed frontrunner Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary.[19] Torres reiterated his support for Trump in the general election following the Access Hollywood controversy.[20]

[TheRickles]

3. No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_de_la_Torre

[UpInArms]

4. Thank you ...

From your link:

A Boston Globe Spotlight Team report on Steward Health Care, published in the months after Steward declared bankruptcy and authored in concert with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), found several instances in the years leading up to the bankruptcy where under de la Torre's leadership, while patients were suffering injury and dying for reasons attributed by federal regulators to insufficient staffing and supply shortages related to unpaid bills, Steward was instead paying large sums on investor dividends, executive bonuses, private investigators, and non-business-related travel.[12] At several junctures, the Globe and OCCRP found evidence of Steward capital being paid specifically to ventures owned by de la Torre or for what appeared to be personal benefit.[13]

In one instance in 2022, de la Torre presented a $10 million donation to Greenhill School, a private preparatory school which his sons attended. According to the school, the donation, which funded the creation of a new science center to be named after de la Torre's mother, originated from the "de la Torre Family Foundation." However, no such foundation was found to have existed. Instead, tax filings found that the donation came from Steward Health Care, which donated $3 million more in 2023. Subsequently, the contract to manage construction of the science center went to Cref, a company in which de la Torre purchased a 40% stake in 2021 with funds from Steward International and which shared a Dallas office space with Steward.[13]

In another instance according to bankruptcy filings, about $30 million per year was paid by Steward to Management Health Services (MHS) for "executive oversight and overall strategic directive." MHS, also part-owed by de la Torre, employed at one time 16 people, which included de la Torre and several other Steward executives, as well as the pilots for Steward's three private jets owned through MHS. De la Torre was in 2019 paid $6.3 million by MHS in a 10-month period.[13]

MHS's jets were often found to be used for non-business travel, including to destinations such as San Jose, Costa Rica, where Steward had no official business but where de la Torre owned multiple residences, and to South Africa, where his family spent a week-long vacation. Additionally, Steward International purchased an apartment for de la Torre in Madrid for €8.1 million.[13]

[Clouds Passing]

5. Healthcare must cease to be treated like a commodity. Now!

[Stargazer99]

6. This country allows private equity-we are suckers and losers to the capitalist system

why can't we outlaw private equity? It sure is destroying the common man and the nation