Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre won't testify before Senate panel, calling it "pseudo-criminal proceeding"
BOSTON - Ralph de la Torre, the CEO of Steward Health Care, says he will not testify at a hearing in Washington next week led by a bipartisan group of senators looking into his bankrupt company.
Back in July, de la Torre was ordered to testify at a public hearing next Thursday before the Senate Committee on Healthcare, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Ralph de la Torre's response
He responded to the subpoena Wednesday with a scathing letter from his attorney, Alexander Merton, to the HELP Committee, saying the senators appeared "determined to turn the hearing into a pseudo-criminal proceeding in which they use the time, not to gather facts, but to convict Dr. de la Torre in the eyes of public opinion."
Instead, he's asking the panel to reschedule the hearing until after Steward's bankruptcy process has finished.
Steward filed for bankruptcy reorganization in May and is working to sell all of its hospitals, including five in Massachusetts.
Bernie Sanders "disappointed"
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, chairman of the HELP Committee, released a statement Wednesday afternoon, saying he is "disappointed, but not surprised" that de la Torre will not testify.
"Perhaps more than anyone else in America, Dr. de la Torre is the poster child for the type of outrageous corporate greed that is permeating through our for-profit health care system," Sanders said. "Working with private equity vultures, he became obscenely wealthy by loading up hospitals across the country with billions in debt and selling the land underneath these hospitals to real estate executives who charge unsustainably high rent. As a result, Steward Health Care, and the more than 30 hospitals it owns in eight states, were forced to declare bankruptcy with some $9 billion in debt."
Sanders said he is now working with committee members "to determine the best path forward."
"But let me be clear: We will not accept this postponement. Congress will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the damage he has caused to hospitals and patients throughout America," Sanders continued. "This Committee intends to move forward aggressively to compel Dr. de la Torre to testify to the gross mismanagement of Steward Health Care. It is time for Dr. de la Torre to get off of his $40 million yacht and explain to the American people how much he has gained financially while bankrupting the hospitals he manages."
Senators call refusal to testify "outrageous"
Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and Sen. Elizabeth Warren issued their own joint statement, calling his refusal to testify "outrageous."
"Dr. de la Torre's defiance of a subpoena to appear before the Senate is outrageous," Markey and Warren said. "He got rich as private equity and real estate vultures picked apart, and drove into bankruptcy, hospitals that employed thousands of health care workers who served communities in Massachusetts and across the country. De la Torre used hospitals as his personal piggy bank and lived in luxury while gutting Steward hospitals. De la Torre is as cowardly as he is cruel. He owes the public and Congress answers for his appalling greed - and De la Torre must be held in contempt if he fails to appear before the Committee."
Criminal investigation into Steward
CBS News was first to report in July that federal prosecutors in Boston are investigating Steward Health Care on allegations of fraud and corruption.
The Senate investigation is aimed at holding de la Torre and Steward accountable for its management of dozens of community hospitals across the country.
"Indeed, there have been calls for criminal investigations of Dr. de la Torre by members of this Committee, ascribing guilt to him without a factual basis for doing so," de la Torre's attorney said in his letter Wednesday.
"It is not within this Committee's purview to make predeterminations of alleged criminal misconduct under the auspices of an examination into Steward's bankruptcy proceedings, and the fact that its Members have already done so smacks of a veiled attempt to sidestep Dr. de la Torre's constitutional rights by seeking sworn testimony on matters for which the Committee has pre-determined his guilt. Dr. de la Torre's testimony before the Committee under these circumstances would be wholly inappropriate."
Merton said his client won't testify at this time because "as doing otherwise may run afoul of the federal court order prohibiting him from discussing the above-referenced mediation efforts."