Charges dropped against 3 nurses in deaths of Hollywood Hills nursing home patients after Hurricane Irma
MIAMI - The Broward State Attorney's Office on Thursday dropped criminal charges against three of four nursing officials who had been accused in the deaths of several patients at a Hollywood Hills nursing home where 12 residents died in 2017 in the wake of Hurricane Irma.
The decision by prosecutors essentially clears nurses Sergo Colin, Althia Meggie and Tamika Miller, each of whom could have been hit with a lengthy prison sentence after being charged with aggravated manslaughter for the deaths of the residents of The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills.
Prosecutors did not, however, drop the manslaughter charges filed against Sergio Colin, a night shift nursing supervisor at the center.
His trial is expected to start Oct. 18.
The charges were linked to the deaths of 12 patients at the center, eight of whom died when the air conditioning at the Broward County nursing home failed during a power outage.
Four other patients died in the days following the outage from heat-related complications, and the case sparked a national uproar over care of the elderly at assisted living centers.
State regulators suspended the licenses of the nurses when the charges were filed but it was not clear if the licenses have been reinstated or if they would be.
Another employee facing charges is Jorge Carballo, who was the chief administrator at the time.
Lawyers for Carballo say he shouldn't be made a scapegoat.
"The only one who can call an evacuation is a doctor and Mr. Carballo has an MBA," said his attorney James Cobb.
Some families sued the closed facility
Attorney John Leighton who represented four of the families who lost loved ones reacted to news of the dropped charges saying, "The real focus should be on the administrators and owners who were profiting from their refusal to move patients in dire need of acute help to the hospital next door."
