When a resident of St. James Place, an assisted living facility in Pennsylvania, was transferred to an acute care hospital in September 2005, emergency room staff removing a bandage from the woman’s head found more than 50 live maggots.  The former ALF Director of Nursing has now been charged by the Pennsylvania Attorney General with criminal neglect of a dependent person as well as with false swearing, perjury, tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, tampering with public records, and unsworn falsification.  The Attorney General has also charged the former administrator and a nursing unit manager with various counts of perjury and tampering with evidence.  “Attorney General Corbett announces arrest of three Delaware County women in Elder Abuse case” (Press Release, Feb. 13, 2007); Nancy Phillips, “Nursing official is charged with criminal neglect,” Philadelphia Inquirer (Feb. 14, 2007). 

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare closed St. James last year, citing the facility with unsanitary conditions and alleged mistreatment of residents.  It also reported that St. James’s owner, William B. Strine, and his brother Walter M. Strine “have a history of regulatory trouble while operating elder-care facilities, all of which have been closed,” and that Walter Strine “was banned from doing business with Medicare and other federal health care programs.”