Judge stands by dropping case against Broward nursing home boss in hurricane deaths
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The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills tragedy
Three days after tropical storm force sustained winds and hurricane strength gusts from the edge of 2017’s Hurricane Irma knocked out power at The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, residents began dying in stifling heat. The death toll reached 12.
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A judge doubled down on his decision to dismiss the case against the nursing home administrator who was accused of causing the deaths of 12 patients after Hurricane Irma left the facility without power for several days.
On Friday, Broward Judge John J. Murphy III dismissed the charges against Jorge Carballo, citing that prosecutors hadn’t proven that Carballo should have known the patients’ lives were in danger. Murphy stood by his decision on Monday, after prosecutors filed a motion requesting that he reconsider.
Broward State Attorney Harold F. Pryor, in a statement to Miami Herald news partner CBS Miami, said that the evidence showed the deaths were the result of negligence.
“We respectfully accept Judge Murphy’s decision, though we strongly disagree with much of the court’s findings and wish that a jury of Mr. Jorge Carballo’s peers had been allowed to reach a verdict,” Pryor said in the statement. “I think we can all agree that all of us would want our family members to have been treated with much more care and concern.”
READ MORE: Residents dead, others evacuated at Hollywood nursing home without power after Irma
Carballo, 65, was facing nine counts of manslaughter, which could have sent him to prison for up to 15 years, according to court records. He was operating the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in September 2017 when Hurricane Irma’s winds turned the 150-bed facility into a powerless hotbox.
Temperatures in the home, which was directly across from Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, soared in the days before the patients started dying. The center and its owners had been cited previously for substandard or fraudulent operations.
READ MORE: Before people died at Hollywood nursing home, inspectors found deplorable conditions
Carballo was the only nursing home employee who was going to be tried after the Broward County State Attorney’s Office dropped cases in 2022 against three nurses, who were then listed as prosecution witnesses.
The state’s Agency for Health Care Administration revoked the facility’s license in 2019. Several wrongful death lawsuits were also filed against the now-shuttered nursing center.
READ MORE: From care center to purgatory to ‘hellhole’: How 11 frail elders died after Irma
This story was originally published February 27, 2023 at 2:24 PM.
