A man tied to arson cases at multiple Boston-area Jewish institutions faced a judge Monday after being extradited from Sweden this weekend.
Alexander Giannakakis, formerly of Quincy, Massachusetts, is accused of helping cover for his younger brothe…
Massachusetts
‘Christmas puppies’: Contractor fined for illegally selling dogs from Mass. home
A home improvement contractor who was already feeling the heat from unhappy customers is now facing thousands of dollars in fines from a state agency tied to allegations of illegally transporting and selling puppies out of his Fall River, Massachusetts, home.
Larry Westgate imported dogs from Pennsylvania without the required medical certificates from a veterinarian, according to an enforcement action from the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources.
Westgate is then accused of selling dozens of puppies without a license to operate as a pet shop from his Fall River home.
The violations tallied $23,000 in fines, but state law caps the total penalty at $10,000 per enforcement action.
Ally Blanck, the director of advocacy for the Animal Rescue League of Boston, explained why those laws are in place.
“It’s important for a lot of reasons. Most of them have to do with the health and safety of the animals,” Blanck said. “Nationwide, there have a number of issues with puppies coming from out of state that have bacteria that is transferred over to humans and can cause some really serious infections.”
On social media, Westgate advertised the puppies via his personal profile along with a Precious Puppy Placement business page. One video showed at least 8 puppies running around the patio of his backyard.
After learning of the unlicensed business, the MDAR sent a “cease and desist” letter to Westgate last March.
“Larry Westgate is hereby ordered to immediately cease and desist from importing any dogs into Massachusetts without an official health certificate,” the letter said.
The document NBC10 obtained also ordered Westgate not to sell any dogs without a license to operate a pet shop.
However, the social media posts offering different breeds of dogs continued throughout the year.
Westgate has since removed the Precious Puppy Placement page, but a post on his personal profile last December noted, “Christmas puppies advertised.”
Following an investigation, the MDAR imposed $500 fines for each of the 45 alleged illegal puppy sales after receiving the order to cease operation.
According to the MDAR, the agency has issued about a dozen cease and desist order over the past two years and levied about $50,000 in fines, including the $10,000 against Westgate.
Add it to the list of problems for Westgate, who is already dealing with complaints from homeowners who say they are owed a lot of money on unfinished projects.
Customers even formed a private Facebook group called, “Scammed by All Phases Renovations” that grew to 80 members after our initial investigation in November.
Westgate has not responded to our questions about the puppy business.
However, social media posts we saved before the business page was taken down seemed to complain about landing on the radar of state authorities.
“There’s always a snake in the grass,” Westgate wrote in an August post. “No matter how many good things you do, there’s always somebody who needs to ruin it.”
A spokesperson at MDAR said Westgate has not requested a hearing to plead his case, nor has he paid the $10,000 in fines.
As we reported in December, the contractor has filed for bankruptcy and is trying to get his debts discharged through that process.
If they haven’t already, Blanck with the Animal Rescue League recommends people who bought a puppy from Westgate bring their dog to a veterinarian to get checked out.
“I think there are, unfortunately, a number of businesses that take the risk and take the gamble that they can continue operating because they think that enforcement won’t catch up to them,” Blanck said.
Steward crisis adds dimension to Mass. health care talks
The fiscal problems at Steward Health Care that exploded into view in recent weeks could push lawmakers into action to “make sure that this never happens again,” according to the top Senate Democrat.
Senate President Karen Spilka said she believes the Healey administration has the primary authority to navigate the potential upheaval, and her chamber is most concerned about “the continuation of patient safety and patient access to care.”
The uncertainty at the system that operates nine hospitals in Massachusetts raises questions about how the problems got so bad with little public warning and how policymakers can prevent a repeat.
Spilka told NBC10 Boston’s @Issue that one potential area of reform might be the Health Policy Commission.
“That was created a little bit more than 10 years ago. Things have changed,” Spilka said in an interview that aired Sunday. “Our health care systems have changed. Private equity has gotten involved in it. Can we make some changes to make sure that this never happens again?”
Spilka said she hopes to work with the House on the topic but added “we haven’t had discussions yet.”
Asked by co-host Sue O’Connell if the public could expect Senate hearings about the topic, Spilka replied, “There can be hearings or joint hearings. I think it would be nice to partner together with the House and work on this.”
“But to hear from experts, since this is a whole new day in health care — what happened here?” she added. “What could we have done? Could we have done anything to prevent this along the way, and what do we need to do to make sure it doesn’t happen with other health care providers?”
More on the Steward Health Care crisis
Most elected officials appeared blindsided by the mid-January revelation, much of it driven by reporting in the Boston Globe, that Steward was teetering on the brink of financial crisis. Regulators in the past had chided Steward for allegedly failing to submit required hospital financial data for review, and they have upped their criticism of the for-profit system in recent weeks.
The state Department of Public Health has had surveyors conducting daily site visits at three Steward hospitals since Wednesday to review staffing levels, daily patient census and the supplies and services provided.
Steward in 2010 won then-Attorney General Martha Coakley’s endorsement for its $495 million acquisition of non-profit hospitals in Brighton, Brockton, Dorchester, Methuen, Norwood and Fall River from the faith-based Caritas health system. Coakley’s office said at the time there were risks involved in a “non-profit to for-profit conversion,” but that the potential hazards were “outweighed by the previously described risks of not undertaking the transaction.”
Steward officials have argued that their struggles are fueled by structural problems and the concentration of resources in larger, academic medical centers. Community hospitals like the ones Steward operates typically serve a higher share of Medicare and Medicaid patients, and those public plans tend to reimburse at lower rates than private insurers.
On Friday, Steward leadership announced they had agreed to principal terms for “bridge funding” that would help stabilize its operations. Executive Vice President Dr. Michael Callum said Steward does not plan to close any of its hospitals, but might eventually look to transfer facilities to new ownership.
“There’s a little bit of a reprieve with the most recent announcement for funding, but this is a problem we’re going to have to be involved in, I think, for several more weeks and months,” Driscoll said.
Massachusetts Medical Society President Dr. Barbara Spivak said the stopgap funding “temporarily averts catastrophic consequences for our already stretched health care infrastructure” and called on leaders to “seek a sustainable plan for Steward hospitals.” She specifically urged the HPC to “thoroughly examine and monitor any future transactions involving Steward in Massachusetts.”
“Our patients, especially those who live in historically underserved communities and depend on Steward for their health needs, must have access to and continuity of care to prevent further exacerbation of health inequities,” Spivak said.
Even before Steward’s specific issues became clear, experts and policymakers were ramping up their warnings about pressure points in the health care industry. The most recent annual cost trends report warned about prices and costs “moving in the wrong direction,” providers across the state continue to struggle with staffing and capacity shortages, and HPC officials said in December that private equity investments in health care were especially “calling out for some policy reform.”
Regulators at the HPC have been urging lawmakers to grant them additional muscle to help rein in some of the problems they see, but House and Senate Democrats have left specific recommendations untouched or been unable to get on the same page.
The Senate last year approved a prescription drug pricing bill for the third session in a row, and neither prior version received a vote in the House. Meanwhile, Speaker Ron Mariano has long eyed action to expand oversight of larger hospital expansions into territories covered by community hospitals, an idea that has not picked up momentum in the Senate.
Mariano said last spring that he supports action to strengthen the HPC to give the agency the “relevant professional experiences” to deal with the current landscape and to allow its experts to more closely scrutinize the pharmaceutical industry. He also signaled at the start of the year — before the Steward crisis emerged — that he planned to bring forward a series of bills this year to tackle various health care issues.
“The entire health care system is still reeling from the effects of the pandemic: hospital emergency departments are still overflowing, providers ranging from primary care offices to entire acute care hospitals are facing closure, bankruptcy or consolidation, and health insurance is becoming increasingly unaffordable for the average Massachusetts family,” he said in January.
Recently convicted sex offender was working at Mass. mental health provider
A recently convicted sex offender from Rhode Island was working at a Massachusetts-based mental health provider up until his prison sentence.
Stephen Souza, 44, worked as a director at North Suffolk Community Services, based out of Chelsea, for several years until he stopped showing up for work a couple of weeks ago. He is now in a medium-security prison in Cranston, Rhode Island, a spokesman with the Rhode Island Supreme Court confirmed.
“I was in shock that someone was able to slip through the cracks slip through the radar,” an employee who asked to remain anonymous told NBC10 Boston. “I’m looking for management to have the answers and they don’t have the answers.”
Souza was initially facing 34 counts of possessing and producing child pornography out of Washington County Superior Court, but was ultimately convicted on 11 of those charges last month. NBC10 Boston legal analyst Michael Coyne said those charges likely wouldn’t come up when searching the Massachusetts Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI).
“A Massachusetts CORI check — criminal offender records — would likely not have shown out-of-state charges. It rarely does,” Coyne said. “And for a position of this sort, they should have, in all likelihood, made a much more thorough search of wherever the individual had worked and lived in the past.”
Some employees are now concerned about privacy, since the anonymous worker said Souza had unlimited access to their buildings and surveillance equipment.
“These are mental health centers and people bring their children to these centers,” the anonymous North Suffolk Community Services employee said. “I just hope that this is not looking like a cover up because it’s not OK.”
“The company has a lot of explaining to do and some significant issues with respect to liability and negligence,” Coyne said.
Souza is now serving a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence, followed by seven and a half years of probation.
North Suffolk Community Services Interim CEO Judi Lemoine released a statement noting that Souza’s conviction stems from charges that predate his employment.
“This individual has been terminated. Extensive Massachusetts and Rhode Island background checks were conducted prior to employment,” Lemoine wrote. “We always conduct a background check both for Massachusetts and any state where an applicant has resided.”
Man who exposed himself at Tewksbury shopping center parking lot still at large
Police are looking for a man who exposed himself to a woman in the parking lot of a shopping center in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, last month.
The flasher made a lewd comment to the woman as well, according to the Tewksbury Police Department. On Mon…
Banh Mi Cafe opens in Watertown
[This story first appeared on Boston Restaurant Talk.]
A new Vietnamese restaurant has opened in the western suburbs of Boston.
According to a Mastodon post from @refreshingapathy, Banh Mi Cafe is now open in Watertown, with the place commencing…
