Two former board members of a closed nursing home in Flora, IN, have been ordered to pay $13.1 million for allegedly depleting the assets of the nonprofit home.
A Marion County judge ordered Dean Beckner to pay $10.3 million and Joseph Collins to pay $2.8 million, including triple damages and attorney fees, according to local reports.
Beckner, a former attorney, and Collins, a director of the former Brethren Health Care Corp., were accused of converting the home into a for-profit operation and exhausting its assets.
In 1994, the home, which was created by the Church of the Brethren in Ohio, was converted into a for-profit entity. At the time of the transaction, the nursing home’s assets were worth at least $3 million, but by August 2001 the nursing home was unable to pay its food and utility bills, and staff paychecks bounced.
A state administrative law judge ordered the home to be closed after the judge found the 46 residents of the home to be in immediate jeopardy.
