Former Florida nursing home workers on trial for the deaths of 12 residents during Hurricane Irma are looking to block more than 1,000 hours of surveillance footage that was recorded during and after the 2017 storm.
Lawyers for two of the workers on trial — Jorge Carballo and Sego Colin — are asking a judge to block expert testimony that was based on the surveillance footage. They say the videos contain “multiple” gaps and, therefore, the experts’ ensuing conclusions should be kept from the jury, the Sun Sentinel reported.
“These many hours of recordings are not a fair and accurate depiction of what did, or in this case, did not occur inside the facility on those days,” the defense attorneys wrote in a motion.
Prosecutors, who plan to reply to the request, used the footage and images from the surveillance to file charges, the report noted.
Carballo, Colin, Althia Meggie and Tamika Miller, all of whom worked at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, in Hollywood, FL, during the hurricane, were each charged in mid-September with aggravated manslaughter of an elderly person or disabled adult. Miller and Meggie also were charged with tampering with or fabricating evidence in connection with medical records.
If convicted, the aggravated manslaughter charges carry a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in prison, while the tampering charges have a maximum sentence of up to five years’s incarceration.
