« Sunny and 75 | Today | Still no school in East Greenwich »

September 5, 2007

2 ex-nursing home officials to plead to charges today

PROVIDENCE -- Two former Hillside Health Center officials are expected to plead today to state charges of embezzlement, conspiracy to commit embezzlement and patient neglect, Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch's office said yesterday.

Antonio L. Giordano, 33, and John Montecalvo, 68, are expected to makes their pleas in an agreement by live video conference from federal prison in Fort Dix, N.J., where they are serving federal sentences, according to a news release from the Rhode Island Judiciary.

The attorney general's office said it would not announce details of the plea agreement.

The pleas will be accepted in courtroom 9 of Providence County Superior Court at 1 p.m. after the men's indictments on 35 counts each in August last year. That courtroom is typically used for video conferences involving inmates at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston.

A majority of the state charges accuse the two men of directing federal money to the mortgage company and then loaning the money back to Hillside at twice the interest rate the federal government was charging.

The indictment also asserts the men in January 2002 took a $400,000 Medicaid check and did not deposit it into the nursing home's operating account but, rather, deposited it for personal use into an account at the mortgage company.

Montecalvo is alleged to have "intentionally failed to provide treatment and care" to 10 patients at Hillside between September 2003 and March 2004, the state indictment said.

Giordano, who operated the home, and Montecalvo, his chief financial officer, were sentenced last year to federal charges. Giordano admitted in the federal case last year that he diverted more than $780,000 in federal money to a company run by his daughter.

Giordano was sentened in the federal case to 2 1/2 years in federal prison and Montecalvo to two years.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney, with Journal archival reports

Posted by Jack Perry  at 7:02 AM | Permalink

Comments

Post a comment

Please be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity won't be published. Name and email are required; email address will not publish.

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)