Hospital chain sues CEO blaming him for bankruptcy
The hospital chain alleges that de la Torre and his team of executives defrauded the company of $262 million and wasted a further $1.1 billion on buying up overpriced hospitals in Florida. The complaint alleges that the catastrophic investments were made to fulfil de la Torre's 'personal desire to build a hospital empire,' a reckless move that involved overpaying about $200 million for the properties.
Steward, which is now being run by an independent administrator after filing for bankruptcy in 2024, is attempting to claw back some of the money from its former bosses to help pay off its debts. De la Torre has become the poster boy for corporate greed rot at the center of the struggling healthcare system. 'Through their greed and bad faith misconduct, [these former insiders] operated Steward with the aim of enriching themselves at the expense of the Company, its creditors, and the patients and communities that Steward served,' the complaint states. 'These insiders pilfered Steward's assets for their own material gain, while leaving the Company and its hospitals perpetually undercapitalized and insolvent.'
The most recent filings also claim that de la Torre and other executives paid themselves a $111 million dividend in 2021, despite knowing that Steward was in trouble as early as 2016. De la Torre founded Steward in Boston in 2010, growing it into the country's largest private for-profit hospital chain, the Boston Globe reported.
It rapidly bought up hospitals on a trajectory that became unsustainable, plunging it into dire financial straits. It eventually filed for bankruptcy in May last year while operating 30 hospitals across eight states.
As it moves through the bankruptcy process Steward has closed two hospitals in Massachusetts - Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer - and sold off a further six. Filings later revealed by The Wall Street Journal showed that after de la Torre took over majority ownership of the hospital chain in 2020, he received personal payments of at least $250 million over the next four years.
He went on to use the money to purchase a $7.2million 500-acre ranch in Waxahachie, Texas, and a 190-foot, $40 million yacht. Further to this de la Torre was revealed to own a 11,108-square-foot mansion in Dallas, valued at more than $7 million.
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Daily Mail
22 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Beach city scraps 10,000 new homes and plans F1-style track instead that locals rage is 'dumb' and 'desperate'
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The Guardian
24 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The heartbreak of watching a parent fall for fraud: ‘Dad, this is a scam – have you given her money?'
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My dad – who had once been a handsome, charismatic Lothario with swagger, with game – now had to be told by both of his daughters that this chic Bomba was 100% not real, not into him, not what or who she says she is. He didn't believe us. Bomba had presented herself, via Facebook, as a widow living in Naples, Florida. She and her late husband had been in the gemstone business, and she was a millionaire. A lonely millionaire at that, looking for love and companionship. She's not real, Dad. I begged him to understand. But I've seen her bank statements. Why would she show you her bank statements? Because her money is tied up in Europe, she can't access it, but she wanted me to know she has it. Dad. This is a scam. Have you given her money? Did she ask for money? Dad? DAD? Needless to say, he didn't believe me. The thing about my dad and money is that he had lived a life of great abundance and great scarcity. 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He had money. And then he lost it, along with his second marriage, his house in the California mountains, his fancy RV … and his pride. By the time Bomba appeared, he was still nursing the faint hope that he might – somehow, some way – get it all back again. Even though by this time he'd burnt so many bridges he was practically an island, and was thoroughly physically incapacitated by the severe scoliosis he'd always outrun as a younger, fitter man. For the pain that the gin couldn't help, his doctors prescribed OxyContin. We'll get to that. He never admitted to sending Bomba money, but my gut says he did. I'd hoped maybe that would be the last scam, but then this happened: my dad called one afternoon to tell me that he was going to buy my husband a better boat. How, I asked? Because I've won the lottery, he said. My heart sank. Dad. It's not real. He forwarded me the documents he'd been sent – on Facebook – by some guy, let's call him Bob. 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Creating Eric was cathartic, as was creating his daughter, Jenny – who, like my sister and me, felt the sting of knowing that her father's view of the world, of women, of humanity, was so painfully distant from her own – and that it was a worldview that, if realised to its fullest potential, would cost her dearly. When I first began to draft the character of Eric, I thought I was writing about something rare, drawn from the distinct and precise experiences I'd had with my own dad. By the time I finished, it was clear that I was writing about something many children are grappling with when it comes to their susceptible parents, and my heart breaks for them, too. Mother Tongue by Naima Brown (Pan MacMillan, $16.99) is out now
Reuters
24 minutes ago
- Reuters
Out-gunned Europe accepts least-worst US trade deal
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