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Massachusetts
Healey tells Steward Health ‘time has come’ to transfer its hospitals
Escalating her administration’s response to a potential health care crisis, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey on Tuesday suggested Steward Health Care transfer its Massachusetts hospitals to new operators “as soon as possible” and demanded long-sought financial information about the for-profit system by the end of the week.
Healey penned a three-page letter to Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre, which her office publicized, alleging that his team has “not been forthcoming, truthful or responsive” about the apparent financial distress the hospitals are facing.
The governor demanded Steward provide the state with information about its finances — which all hospitals by law are required to submit to regulators — by the close of business on Friday. She also called on the system to properly staff and supply all of its Massachusetts facilities, comply with increased on-site state monitoring, and allow someone else to take over its seven hospitals in the Bay State.
“The time has come to move past our many months of discussions and begin executing a safe, orderly transition of your seven licensed facilities in Massachusetts to new operators as soon as possible,” Healey wrote. “This begins with your commitment to fully disclose the financial information we have requested by close of business on February 23, 2024. Your continued refusal to do so, particularly at this moment, is irresponsible and an affront to the patients, workers, and communities that the Steward hospitals serve. It also leads to a further breakdown in trust and creates a major roadblock to our ability to work together to resolve this effectively.”
While the letter didn’t say what consequences the health care system would face if it didn’t comply, Healey Cced the acting U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, Joshua Levy, and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell.
And the letter put “freezing admissions, closing beds, canceling procedures, and transferring patients to other hospitals” on the table as possible responses if the hospitals don’t get adequate staff and supply levels.
Read the letter here:
NBC10 Boston’s Asher Klein contributed to this report.
More on the Steward Health Care situation in Mass.
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Brian Walshe, charged with murdering wife, to be sentenced in art fraud case
Brian Walshe, the Massachusetts man accused of killing his wife on New Year’s Day 2023 and lying about where she went, is due in federal court Tuesday to be sentenced in a separate art fraud case.
Walshe’s sentencing hearing is being held Tuesday in Boston at 2:30 p.m.
Walshe has been charged with first-degree murder as well as misleading a police investigation/obstruction of justice and improper conveyance of a human body. He is accused of killing his wife, Ana Walshe, dismembering her and disposing of her body. He has pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail.
Before that, he was embroiled in an art fraud case in which he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and other federal charges involving phony Andy Warhol paintings. Walshe took photos of a friend’s authentic Andy Warhol paintings and used the photos to sell replicas on eBay, according to court documents.
The case started in 2016 when a buyer saw two Andy Warhol paintings for sale on eBay. The listing, according to prosecutors, included photographs of authentication stamps. The buyer arranged to buy those paintings, part of the “Shadows” series, for $80,000. However, after having an assistant pick the paintings up, the buyer discovered there were no authentication stamps and that the canvas looked new. This ultimately led to an FBI investigation.
Brian Walshe had gained access to the paintings by telling a friend, who was the lawful owner of the paintings, that he could help sell them for a good price, the court documents state. However, that friend told investigators that after Brian Walshe took the art, he was unable to contact him. The art in question was valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Brian Walshe was arrested in that investigation in 2018. He would ultimately plead guilty to one count each of wire fraud, interstate transportation for a scheme to defraud, possession of converted goods and unlawful monetary transaction.
Prosecutors have requested that Walshe be sentenced to just over three years in prison, another three years of supervised release and to pay restitution, saying that Walshe obstructed justice after he pleaded guilty for giving false information in a financial statement to the probation office.
“The conduct underlying the defendant’s obstruction of justice is troubling. At the same time, it should not distract from the real issue: the defendant’s years long scheme of fraud, which had devastating consequences for the victims,” prosecutors wrote, adding that Walshe’s “misleading of the Court is an extension of his criminal conduct (although all the more brazen in that he attempted to deceive the Court).”
Walshe’s attorney, Tracy Miner, asked the judge to impose a sentence of time served, with three years of superviced release, as a prior judge had determined in 2021, before the financial issue prosecutors mentioned.
She wrote that the financial issue, “Walshe’s failure to include any assets he received as personal representative of his father’s estate or expenditures made on behalf of his father’s estate on his personal financial statement does not constitute obstruction of justice.”
The sentencing memos mention the murder case against Walshe. Prosecutors said that both parties urged that sentencing in federal court not take those state charges into account.
“That case will go forward, as it should, in Norfolk Superior Court. Those allegations are too serious to be considered in this case, without being proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and a federal sentencing hearing is not proper forum to prove them,” prosecutors wrote.
Walshe’s lawyer wrote that the man was trying to gather necessary information about the account he received and spent from his father’s estate when “his wife went missing and he was subsequently arrested and held without bail.”
“Rather than request additional time and judicial process to obtain the necessary documents, given the pending state court charges against him, on the advice of counsel, Mr. Walshe hereby invokes his fifth amendment privilege with respect to providing any additional financial statements to this Court,” Miner wrote.
Read the sentencing memos below:
More about Brian Walshe
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