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State revokes licenses of Putnam mental-health facility

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Anonymous:
SLS was just sanctioned by the Federal Judge in the lawsuit for $35,000 for it's gross and deliberate abuse of the legal system.  More to come...

Anonymous:
Federal Judge Stephen Robinson issued a decision today, in which he stated that “the Court finds that the Defendants have engaged in abusive, deliberate and improper conduct . . . by communicating false and misleading information to the putative class members and their parents and families, in a concerted effort to scare them into opting out of the lawsuit.”

Judge Robinson fined SLS $35,000, voided the opt-outs and ordered that SLS may not communicate with class members about the lawsuit.

The Court made the following findings:

A number of former patients complained that SLS therapists called them and stated that if they did not opt out of the lawsuit, their records would be publicized.

Barbara Claire of Connecticut Department of Children and Families, which had no prior involvement with the lawsuit, said in an e-mail that Al Bergman called several DCF employees and asked them to sign opt out notices on behalf of class members receiving services at DCF. Anne Louise Blanchard, an attorney with Connecticut Legal Services, received a call from Bergman in which he falsely stated that “a federal judge had ordered that all of their clients’ psychiatric records be made public.” (4).

The defendants contacted 80 class members or their families. “Virtually all of those calls were made by SLS therapists, including Defendant Prichard.” (5) 37 of the 67 class members who opted out had been contacted by SLS.

“Counsel for the Defendants informed the Court that, prior to any telephone calls . . . they had issued a memorandum to the Defendants advising them not to have any contact with any prospective class member, and that, if such contact should occur, the Court may impose sanctions.” (5).

SLS therapist Dr. Mark Lombardo testified that “he attended a meeting that Defendant Dr. Shawn Prichard called amongst the therapists” (5) and that Prichard gave the therapists a list of former patients to contact. Dr. Lombardo told the class members or families on his list that the class members’ records would be made public if the member participated in the lawsuit.”(6)

“Defendants have ignored the advice and counsel of their attorneys, improperly communicated with putative class members [and] severely abused the judicial processes …. Defendants related false and misleading information to putative class members.” (9)

“The Defendants developed and executed a plan . . . to coerce putative class members to opt out of the class. In bad faith, they provided class members with patently false and misleading information about what this Court has done, what the Court will do and what will come to pass during the litigation of this case. Needless to say, there has been no order by the Court that all psychiatric records be made public, nor will there be; nor was there any basis from which to tell members of the class that should they remain in the class, their medical histories and records would be publicized.” (9).

“But Defendants . . . also contacted institutions that are involved with treating potential plaintiffs, seeking to convince them to sign opt outs on behalf of the potential class members and misinforming those institutions about what this Court has and has not done. As the Defendants well know, these institutions have no authority to sign opt out notices on behalf of their clients. Yet the Defendants were willing to interfere in another institution’s relationship with that institution’s clients- essentially, seeing to use those other institutions as proxies for their scheme.” (10)

This was “a scheme designed and implemented by the very highest managers at SLS.” (10).

“In an effort to exert the most effective influence over the plaintiffs, the Defendants strategized that each former patient’s therapist – the one in the greatest position of trust, influence, and authority- would be the one to place the call.” (10).

“It is beyond dispute that they intended to interfere with class members’ decisions regarding whether to participate in this lawsuit by painting a terrorizing picture of what such participation would entail.” (11)

“The fact that the Defendants and specifically the therapists making the phone calls were mental health care providers to these individuals makes Plaintiffs more susceptible to their influence and increases the potential for coercion. Defendants exploited this sensitive relationship . . . . Under the guise of looking out for their former patients’ well-being, the Defendants developed and implemented a scheme designed to cause them distress all in order to serve their own ends of limiting potential liability.” (11-12).

“Moreover, the fact that the Defendants deliberately distressed those former patients, whose mental health they claimed to be concerned about . . . to serve their own means- all the while under the guise of seeking to protect those patients- is seriously disturbing.” (12-13).

“Defendants sought to capitalize on the potential plaintiffs’ vulnerability and discourage them from participating in the lawsuit. This conduct is astounding to the court. The degree to which the Defendants successfully sought to interfere with the system of justice, diminish Plaintiffs’ confidence in class counsel, and undermine the authority of this Court is difficult to overstate.” (13).

“To the extent that the Defendants were in a position of power and trust over the potential plaintiffs, the Defendants in bad faith took advantage of that position to manipulate the potential plaintiffs, this litigation, counsel, and the Court. This type of egregious conduct may not be tolerated.” (15)

hurrikayne:
By Terence Corcoran
The Journal News • September 15, 2008

SOUTHEAST - The co-owner of a private mental-health facility that has been fined by the state and faces revocation of its operating licenses for allegedly violating laws and failing to correct those violations is defending his company.

Dr. Joseph Santoro said the company had not been given a fair hearing and that it was being fined for violating at least one law that is murky at best.
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The state Office of Mental Health recently notified Santoro and Alfred Bergman, co-owners of the for-profit SLS Residential Inc., that it was revoking three licenses the company uses to run two residential treatment centers in the town of Southeast. The facilities treat adolescents and young adults with emotional and psychological issues.

The revocations, which will be stayed until SLS appeals in court, follow $110,000 in fines that the OMH levied in 2006 for the violations. SLS is appealing the fines in state Supreme Court in Putnam County, where Justice Andrew O'Rourke recently issued a stay until Sept. 26 so SLS can file a specific action challenging the state's rulings.

In a interview Friday, Santoro, vice president of SLS, said his company was appealing for several reasons.

"Number one, the evidence they (OMH officials) presented was largely hearsay," Santoro said. "Some of it you could consider rumor and gossip."

Santoro said SLS was not given a fair hearing by the OMH and would be vindicated in court. "(OMH) chose the hearing officer, paid for his services, and were kind of in bed with him," he said. "It wasn't an impartial hearing."

Jill Daniels, spokeswoman for OMH, defended the hearing.

"The Office of Mental Health has a process in place which ensures the independence and objectivity of a hearing officer," she wrote in an e-mail Friday. "As such, the hearing officer selected for the recent SLS hearing was chosen by someone who is not in any way involved in the oversight of SLS or its operation."

The OMH initially fined SLS, also known as Supervised Lifestyles, $80,000 in November 2006 for eight violations that inspectors found during unannounced visits to the residential centers on North Brewster Road and off Putnam Avenue. Inspectors returned later that month, finding more violations for which SLS was fined $30,000 more.

Among the alleged violations were that SLS restrained patients and prevented them from having contact with family members.

"The issue here is that there are real fundamental regulatory problems that OMH has been reluctant to address," Santoro said. "What is restraint as defined in laws and regulations? The definition in law of restraint is the use of an apparatus to immobilize someone. SLS has never restrained through the use of apparatus; therefore, we have never restrained based on the definition of law."

Daniels said the OMH was specific in its directions to SLS.

"Both the Office of Mental Health and the Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities have given SLS very clear direction on the definition of and policy around restraint since the issue first came up in 2005," she wrote.

Santoro said SLS patients - called members - are young adults with serious issues, sometimes worsened by substance abuse.

"These are members with serious problems and emotional distress who sometimes try to hurt themselves physically to distract from the emotional pain. The staff has to intervene and may hold on to them to stop them from hurting themselves or to break up a fight. A restraint may last a few seconds up to 10 minutes," Santoro said.

He said patients weren't allowed to roam unsupervised off-site for fear that some who abuse substances may chose to do that while taking prescription medicine and could end up hospitalized. Certain members are not allowed to call their families because they will only get into fights, he said.

He said SLS has clients from all over the country, some of whom pay out of pocket, and that clients have included family members of prominent people. He also said they have people whose insurance covers the cost and that some patients are sent there by other states, including Connecticut.

"The families and the insurance companies wouldn't tolerate sub-standard care and neither would we," he said.

Santoro said SLS was surprised at the license revocations.

"On their last site visit in May, they said there were no significant problems. Then all of a sudden - boom! - we don't like what you've done. I truly believe there was a relationship" between the revocation and SLS appealing the fines in court, he said.

Again, Daniels rejected this argument.

"The findings of the OMH visit this past May are incorporated in the letter from OMH to SLS, dated Aug. 29. The revocation of SLS operating certificates is in no way retaliatory for their exercising their rights to challenge the fines in court."

Other allegations by the OMH include that Santoro and staff lied to the OMH that a patient, Evan Marshall, was not receiving SLS services when he went home on a weekend pass and killed his mother's Long Island neighbor. Marshall, 32, is serving 29 years to life.

Santoro said they never testified that Marshall was not an SLS patient at the time, only that he was in a different program.

Although money spent on legal fees could have gone toward the $110,000 fines, Santoro said it was about "principle."

"It affects the welfare and safety of patients throughout the entire state. OMH has an obligation to define its regulations," he said.

He also noted that SLS has been accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, a private, not-for-profit organization that has established standards of quality.

Glen Feinberg, a Pleasantville lawyer who went to court to win the right to protest outside SLS sites over the poor treatment he thought his son got there in 2001 and 2002, said Santoro's statements appeared to refute testimony at the OMH hearing.

"There was nothing ambiguous in the fact that OMH ordered SLS to stop restraining patients. SLS repeatedly promised to stop and then continued doing the things that OMH told them were specifically illegal," Feinberg said.

SLS is also the plaintiff in a multimillion-dollar federal class-action lawsuit by two ex-patients who allege that SLS violated their rights.

http://http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080915/NEWS01/809150351/-1/newsfront

Anonymous:

--- Quote from: "Former SLS Member" ---Reprehensible Actions
http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? ... /newsfront

SLS Residential Inc., which runs residential treatment centers for young adults with psychiatric problems, operates two facilities in well-manicured, stately old Victorian homes in Brewster. From the outside, SLS properties look as if they belong to the ideal neighbor, but whatever went on behind those crisp facades is starting to sound like a Stephen King novel.

It was bad enough when SLS was accused of violating their patients' rights in a variety of demeaning ways, from using illegal restraints and physical holds, opening personal packages, conducting body and room searches, and forcing patients to submit urine samples while a staff member watched. This humiliating list of findings against SLS was upheld in June by the state commissioner of the Office of Mental Health, who heard an appeal of the charges and ordered the company to pay $110,000.
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But now a federal court judge in White Plains, hearing testimony in pre-trial hearings for a separate $225 million class-action suit brought against SLS by former patients, says that the for-profit health-care company did something unthinkable. Some therapists from SLS called their former patients and their families, and tried to prevent them from joining the lawsuit, according to the court. The therapists - whom the patients presumably turned to in their weakest moments, revealing their intimate thoughts and feelings - threatened that if the patients joined the suit against SLS, their medical records, including their troubled mental-health histories, would be made public in open court.

Such coercion is beyond unethical for therapists who, after all, are duty-bound to protect their patients, not their employers. It is manipulative, cynical and downright predatory.

As Journal News staff writer Terence Corcoran reported Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Stephen C. Robinson said that no medical histories would be discussed in the trial, which was brought by two patients who chose to identify themselves, and many unnamed patients. "I have no doubt that inappropriate action took place here,'' the judge said, before demanding that SLS produce a list of every patient and family member called, as well as the names of those who made the calls and those who ordered the calls to be made.

If the tale unfolding in federal court now turns out to be half as bad as it sounds at this juncture, the Office of Mental Health should revoke SLS' license to operate. If found culpable, individuals working for SLS should be severely sanctioned. Any licensed therapists, psychologists, social workers or medical personnel found to have participated in the scheme should be investigated by the state Education Department, which licenses them.



"Federal Judge Blasts Putnam treatment Facility"
http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? ... /newsfront

A federal judge yesterday blasted representatives of a for-profit mental-health company that treats young adults with psychiatric problems at two Putnam County facilities for lobbying former patients to opt out of a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit brought against the company.

U.S. District Judge Stephen C. Robinson in White Plains said the actions by representatives of SLS, which runs two residential treatment centers in Southeast, might be the "most outrageous conduct" he's ever witnessed as a judge.
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Therapists from SLS contacted former patients who qualify for the class action and told them that if they didn't opt out, their medical records could be made public and discussed in open court. The patients had been sent a letter by the court, advising them that they needed to respond by next Monday to opt out.

Robinson said there was nothing to indicate that medical records would be revealed or individuals identified during a trial.

Family members of the patients were also called, and, in one case, an SLS representative contacted an attorney with Connecticut Legal Services to urge that clients who were treated at SLS opt out of the action.

"I have no doubt that inappropriate action took place here," Robinson said. "There's no question."

SLS began making the calls after the court sent the letters.

Goshen, N.Y., attorney Michael Sussman filed the class-action lawsuit last year against several companies affiliated with SLS, the principals of those companies and several employees. The defendants include SLS Residential Inc., SLS Health, SLS Wellness, Supervised Lifestyles Inc., Chairmen Alfred Bergman and Joseph Santoro, a psychologist and several SLS employees. The company has its headquarters on Route 6 in Southeast.

Sussman filed the lawsuit on behalf of former SLS patients Nicholas J. Romano and Deborah A. Morgan, both of New Jersey, and many unnamed patients. Romano and Morgan, in their mid-20s, allege that SLS violated their rights and others' rights under the Americans With Disabilities Act. The lawsuit seeks $75 million in compensatory damages, $150 million in punitive damages and an injunction to bar SLS from further violating patients' rights.

Sussman said he had heard from at least five potential plaintiffs who received calls from SLS.

Mark Lombardo, a psychologist at SLS, which runs residential treatment centers on North Brewster Road and off Putnam Avenue in Southeast, told Robinson that he and other therapists were given a list by a supervisor of patients to call who qualified for the class-action suit and their families.

Lombardo said that none of the therapists had legal training and that no lawyers were present when the supervisor ordered them to make the calls. He said that patients and family members were not told they could possibly benefit from joining the lawsuit. He said people who had problems with SLS were not called.

Robinson ordered SLS attorney Paul Callan of Manhattan to bring a list of every patient and family member SLS contacted, the time of the call, the person who called, and the person who gave the instructions to call. Robinson ordered that all who made the calls appear in court.

He noted that several former patients who had contacted Sussman to complain about the calls were not on the list provided by Callan. He called Callan's responses to his questions "misleading, deceptive and troubling to this court."

Callan took umbrage, saying that no one had questioned his ethics in his 35-year law career.

"Mark the date on your calendar," Robinson responded. "July 8, 2008. Mark it."

Robinson later ordered that new letters be sent to those who opted out, and those who didn't, after Monday's deadline. Those who opted out will also get a letter from SLS in which the company will explain the misinformation it gave patients and families in the phone calls.

In addition, Robinson said he would order SLS to pay any legal fees Sussman incurred in bringing the calls to the court's attention and would consider a financial sanction against SLS and, possibly, Callan's firm, Callan, Koster, Brady & Brennan.

Robinson also issued an order barring SLS from discussing the lawsuit with any current or former patients. The parties will return to court July 17.

Allegations in the lawsuit are similar to several violations for which the state Office of Mental Health fined SLS in 2006 after visiting its treatment centers. The state fined SLS $110,000 for eight violations that inspectors found during a visit on Nov. 17, 2006, and for three more violations found during a follow-up visit Nov. 28, 2006. Among the violations were that SLS used illegal restraints on patients and failed to conduct criminal background checks on new employees.

SLS fought the allegations in a hearing in the summer of 2007 before the state Office of Mental Health. A hearing officer found that SLS violated patients' rights on several occasions and broke the law. Then, last month, OMH Commissioner Michael F. Hogan upheld the state hearing officer's findings. However, SLS has yet to pay the fine and can still appeal in court.

Actual Revocation Order:
http://www.heal-online.org/slsshutdown.pdf
--- End quote ---

All that SLS is accused of was done to me by Desisto, all the time. It's odd that what is a crime in N.Y is not in Mass. They are both liberal, progressive states with similar population demographics. On the other hand, what was done to me in Florida should come as a shock to only the most naive

Anonymous:
These people are animals and need to be put behind bars before they push another patient to self destruct or rip another family apart all in the name of profit.

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