Gov. Whitmer could face criminal charges over Michigan nursing home deaths, prosecutor says
(The Center Square) – Gov. Gretchen Whitmer could face criminal charges for her policy that placed COVID-19 positive patients in the same facilities as nursing home residents, Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido said.
Lucido said people who lost loved ones to COVID-19 inside nursing homes should take death certificate information to local police and make a wrongful death complaint.
Lucido questioned if Whitmer was liable for possible damage caused by the order since she decreed it unilaterally without the legislature.
Whitmer’s Executive Order 2020-50 mandated nursing homes take patients from nursing homes and hospitals and house them with regular nursing home residents. EO 2020-50 was one of many orders tossed by the Michigan Supreme Court in October.
“How is it she’s allowed to continue those orders that affected our seniors when she had no jurisdiction and the [Michigan] Supreme Court said it’s unconstitutional?”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo also is currently under investigation for allegedly undercounting the number of COVID-19 deaths inside nursing homes after his policy sent COVID-19 positive patients into nursing homes.
Lucido questioned why the New York Attorney General was investigating Cuomo’s nursing home policies, but Nessel hasn’t investigated Whitmer’s similarly structured policy.
Lucido says only five states including Michigan and New York used the care facilities as regional hubs.
Local prosecutors can investigate if the criteria of an alleged crime have been met, Lucido said, but ultimately it’s up to Attorney General Dana Nessel to investigate and press charges.
In June, U.S. Congressional Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, said Whitmer’s decision “likely contributed to the thousands of elderly deaths in Michigan,” he wrote to Whitmer.
In a March 2020 memo, the Health Care Association of Michigan advised Whitmer to place quarantine COVID-19 positive patients in new, separate facilities to prevent widespread COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes, but Whitmer instead pursued regional hubs.
“We were putting sick people in with people who aren’t sick,” Lucido said in a phone interview with The Center Square. “It doesn’t even make sense.”
State data reports 5,537 long-term care facility residents across Michigan have died from COVID-19, while 69 staff members have died. The long-term care deaths account for 36% of the state’s COVID-19 deaths.
“This isn’t a partisan issue,” Lucido said. “This has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans. It has to do with transparency, honesty, and integrity. Because right now, if I was looking at the law, was it reckless endangerment to human life? Was it willful and neglect of her duty as a public official? These are chargeable crimes.”
Lucido previously asked then U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Matthew Schneider to investigate. Lucido also asked Nessel to investigate, before New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s scandal started.
Nessel’s office said it’s reviewing a request to investigate Whitmer’s nursing home policies during COVID-19.
“At the end of the day, we’re still stuck not getting answers,” Lucido said. “Don’t you think if she came and sat down with her team, answered all the questions … don’t you think that would give closure to families who lost loved ones?”
“What kind of government is this that’s being silenced?” Lucido said, referring to a confidentiality agreement the state signed with outgoing Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Robert Gordon earlier this year. Gordon also received a secret, taxpayer-funded $155,506 severance package after he abruptly resigned within 24 hours of loosening COVID-19 restrictions on restaurants.
“Doesn’t the public have a right to know why this agreement was needed?” Lucido asked. “I’ve never seen one in government like this… This is taxpayer money, this isn’t private dollars! How shameful.”
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