GUILTY MO - Carl DeBrodie, 31, Fulton, disabled, beaten to death, encased in concrete, 17 Apr 2017 *Arrests

[inmyhumbleopinion]

The Missouri Department of Mental Health, department Director Mark Stringer and other leaders of the agency were dismissed from a federal lawsuit Friday that stems from the death of a disabled man found encased in a block of concrete.

Missouri officials are dropped from wrongful death lawsuit of disabled man found in concrete

Also from the article:

“Remaining defendants include Second Chance and four of its employees, including nurse Melissa DeLap who has pleaded guilty to one count of federal health care fraud; Callaway County Special Services, its director and a former caseworker; and the Callaway County Public Administrator and a deputy public administrator.

At the time of his death, the public administrator was DeBrodie’s guardian, which, including other duties, would have approved of his home plan.“

Praying that none of the above individuals will be dismissed.

 

[jggordo]

Settlement reached in DeBrodie civil case

According to Rudy Veit, the attorney for the DeBrodie family, a "confidential settlement" was reached between the parties in the case. A "sufficient amount of money" was given to Carolyn Summers. DeBrodie's biological mother, according to Veit.

He said the amount of money Summers received is confidential, but it is an "unstructured settlement," meaning she could be taken care of the rest of her life. However, the settlement won't be given to Summers all at once. Some of the money will go toward "facilities that helped DeBrodie."

JNS {Just Not Surprised}

 

[cvaldez1975]

Settlement reached in DeBrodie civil case

According to Rudy Veit, the attorney for the DeBrodie family, a "confidential settlement" was reached between the parties in the case. A "sufficient amount of money" was given to Carolyn Summers. DeBrodie's biological mother, according to Veit.

He said the amount of money Summers received is confidential, but it is an "unstructured settlement," meaning she could be taken care of the rest of her life. However, the settlement won't be given to Summers all at once. Some of the money will go toward "facilities that helped DeBrodie."

JNS {Just Not Surprised}

hopefully not the effin facility that killed him.

 

[jggordo]

I believe that his Mother was not able to care for him when he was very young due to her own mental health, therefor Carl was adopted by Ms.Martin when he was 10 or 11 or so. Ms. Martin cared for him until he reached 21 then he became a ward of the State. I think that's how it goes. So all in all his Mother had not cared for him for 20+ years.

I was afraid that ANY substantial monetary award to his Mother would be signed off on, due to her challenges. I always thought she was in no mental capacity to make those kinds of decisions or could be easily influenced. In any case it is more money that they could ever imagine and they wanted it sooner than later.

I hope this does not seem too harsh, but it's my opinion.

 

[inmyhumbleopinion]

I believe that his Mother was not able to care for him when he was very young due to her own mental health, therefor Carl was adopted by Ms.Martin when he was 10 or 11 or so. Ms. Martin cared for him until he reached 21 then he became a ward of the State. I think that's how it goes. So all in all his Mother had not cared for him for 20+ years.

I was afraid that ANY substantial monetary award to his Mother would be signed off on, due to her challenges. I always thought she was in no mental capacity to make those kinds of decisions or could be easily influenced. In any case it is more money that they could ever imagine and they wanted it sooner than later.

I hope this does not seem too harsh, but it's my opinion.

It doesn’t seem harsh at all, jggordo; it’s just the reality of the situation, IMO.

I came actoss some additional information:

“The final verbiage of the agreement is still being hammered out and approved, Veit said. He said he expects the settlement to be finalized within two to three weeks.

‘We have enough signed documents that it will not fall apart,’ he said, adding he expects the defendants will not be required to admit fault as part of the settlement's terms.

The settlement includes the Callaway County Public Administrator's office, Callaway County Special Services and Second Chance Homes of Fulton. Second Chance was the supported living home where DeBrodie lived prior to his death at 31.

[SBM]

Veit said Summers is relieved she won't have to testify in court for the lawsuit.

[SBM]

Veit also said raising public awareness about the importance of monitoring individualized supported living homes such as Second Chance was one of the goals of the civil suit.

‘We wanted people to know what can happen in these homes,’ he said.

Veit declined to disclose the amount of money Summers will be receiving, or what percentage of the total each defendant will pay.

[SBM]

Part of the settlement will be donated to organizations that support people like DeBrodie, he added, specifically mentioning Wonderland Camp, a summer camp for those with disabilities.

Criminal proceedings in the DeBrodie case are ongoing.” (BBM)
Fulton Sun | Settlement reached in DeBrodie civil suit

 

[GarAndTeed]

Judge Doug Harpool ruled that the department, along with several top leaders, could not be sued for constitutional violations due to sovereign immunity, and that DeBrodie's family could not point to specific instances that their actions led to DeBrodie's death.

I can't access this article; can anyone explain sovereign immunity (as referenced in this case)? Thanks for any replies!

 

[inmyhumbleopinion]

I can't access this article; can anyone explain sovereign immunity (as referenced in this case)? Thanks for any replies!

Great question. I’d never heard of the term before. I’m still not sure if I completely understand what it is, but here is the best definition I was able to find:

“Definition:
The sovereign immunity refers to the fact that the government cannot be sued without its consent.

Overview:
[SBM]
In the United States, sovereign immunity typically applies to the federal government and state government, but not to municipalities. Federal and state governments, however, have the ability to waive their sovereign immunity. The federal government did this when it passed the Federal Tort Claims Act, which waived federal immunity for numerous types of torts claims.

Various Considerations Related to Federal Immunity:
Under the Feres Doctrine, those who are injured during their military service cannot sue the federal government.

Under the Westfall Act, federal employees cannot be sued for torts committed during the scope of their employment .

Citizens Suing Their Own State
When determining whether a citizen may sue a state actor (someone acting on behalf of the state: i.e. a state worker), courts will typically use one (1) of four (4) tests:

1. Governmental v proprietary function test (Was the actor functioning in a governmental fashion or a proprietary fashion?)
1. If the actor was performing a proprietary function (i.e. acting for financial gain for itself or its citizens; doing something that is not historically a governmental function; doing something that can be performed by a private corporation/contractor), then the actor is subject to liability
2. If the actor was performing a governmental function (i.e. acting for the general public; doing something ordained by legislature; performing a historic gov function), then the actor is not subject to liability

2. 2) Ministerial/operational v. discretionary functions/acts test (Was the actor performing a ministerial/operational task or a discretionary task?)
1. If the actor is performing a ministerial/operational action, then there is not immunity.
2. If the actor is performing a discretionary action, then there is immunity.

3. 3) Planning v implementational (Was the actor planning an action or implementing an action?)
1. If the actor's planning of policy results in harm, then there is immunity
2. If the harm happens due to the government's implementation of the plan, then there is not immunity

4. 4) Non-justiciable v. justiciable
1. If the action is justiciable under regular tort principles, then there is no immunity. If the issue is not justiciable under regular tort principles, then there is immunity.”
Sovereign immunity

Also, here is link to the article from which the quote you cited came from:
Judge dismisses state from DeBrodie civil suit

Hope this helps!

 

[GarAndTeed]

Thank you SO much, @inmyhumbleopinion ! I just got back from an appt. so I'll read this over now. I really appreciate your effort and kindness!

 

[Razz]

I'm still waiting to hear who put that young man in concrete and then a barrel. (Or the other way around).

 

[mpnola]

Wait wait, hold up. I don't give a rats a!/$& about money. As a "mother", I would want to make sure criminal justice was served. Because a monetary settlement isn't about him. HE was harmed here. HE was neglected. HE was mistrated and murdered! Now he needs justice! Not someone else receiving a payout.

This case.... I can barely even read it and I try not to shy away from hard cases. But, I worked in this field for so long. And I know just how many huge cracks he had to fall through to get to this point. I cannot comprehend why this isnt a huge issue in the state or the disabilities community! Where is the public outrage for him. Most adults who live in facilities do not have legal guardians. They sign and make decisions (with the help of a professional team) for themselves. A few people are interdicted to a family member. Fewer have a court appointed guardian, who holds their right and interdiction. Those are the clients that are the hardest, only because before you do anything (spend over $20 or whatever number the Guardian specifies, sign them up for a bowling team, change medication, get a different job at the day program--- anything! !!!), you have to contact the Guardian and get in writing what their decision is. Now, I had good working relationships with all of the guardians, so they usually trusted and defered to me for many decisions, but they still had to be contacted. They visited all the time. So, how he was not in a state run and monitored facikity, but also had a court appointed guardian and this happened... it is beyond me. And heads should be more than rolling, they should be flying. I'm in total director mode and I want to just tear into the whole lot of them. I want to advocate for him. I keep waiting for someone to do it strongly, but I'm angry at every turn.

Ugh. I will stop rantin now. I know I'm preaching to the choir. But I'm mad.

 

[Laughing]

mpnola, this gentleman was in so many ways child-like. WE can't quite figure out these folks who hurt & kill children.

RIP, Carl, we will probably never know all that you endured!

 

[whatsnext]

Court Document:

https://media.abc17news.com/npg-kmiz-media-us-east-1/document_dev/2018/05/30/carl debrodie death_1527699337796_11704970_ver1.0.pdf

I read all of it and I certainly didn't understand everything (english is not my mother tongue) , but I understood enough to make me feel really upset and disgusted . Carl was completely let down by the people who were supposed to take care of him. Even though it will be of no use to him, I so much want punishment for the people in charge. I'm not very optimistic about it, though.

 

[jggordo]

For those who are not from Missouri, part of this debacle IMO is political. Josh Hawley who ran for Attorney General and won (R) decided only months after taking office that he really wants to be Senator and has been campaigning since. Not only is the Office not getting his full attention but anything he can do to garner national republican attention he does. One of those was to get State employees dropped from the Civil and Criminal liabilities. Not to mention the Governor (R) had to resign shortly after taking office.

IMO they should be ashamed.

 

[jggordo]

Restitution reduced for nurse in DeBrodie case

Melissa DeLap will have to pay back $2,500 she received for visits she never had with DeBrodie, who was reported missing in April 2017 and was found dead 10 days later. She pleaded guilty Aug. 20 to health care fraud for having reporting seeing DeBrodie in required face-to-face visits and collecting Medicaid payment for those visits.

She was originally ordered to pay $106,795 in restitution, but the amount was reduced when investigators determined only the $2,500 was acquired by fraud.

Restitution reduced for nurse in DeBrodie case

 

[Gardener1850]

Restitution reduced for nurse in DeBrodie case

Melissa DeLap will have to pay back $2,500 she received for visits she never had with DeBrodie, who was reported missing in April 2017 and was found dead 10 days later. She pleaded guilty Aug. 20 to health care fraud for having reporting seeing DeBrodie in required face-to-face visits and collecting Medicaid payment for those visits.

She was originally ordered to pay $106,795 in restitution, but the amount was reduced when investigators determined only the $2,500 was acquired by fraud.

Restitution reduced for nurse in DeBrodie case

This feels like a slap on the wrist to me. Are there other patients she claimed to see but never visited? Did she also lose her license to work as a nurse?

I feel like everyone involved in this case should be barred from working in the care-giving field ever again. If they could do this to a disabled man, they could do it to any one of us who becomes unable to care for ourselves due to age or accident. We are all just one car accident away from being like Carl. It feels like there is no justice in any of these judgements against the people responsible.

 

[inmyhumbleopinion]

This feels like a slap on the wrist to me. Are there other patients she claimed to see but never visited? Did she also lose her license to work as a nurse?

I feel like everyone involved in this case should be barred from working in the care-giving field ever again. If they could do this to a disabled man, they could do it to any one of us who becomes unable to care for ourselves due to age or accident. We are all just one car accident away from being like Carl. It feels like there is no justice in any of these judgements against the people responsible.

Yep, it could happen to anyone, and I wonder how rampant this is. I get so angry just thinking about it.

As to your questions:

From the plea agreement:
“SCH submitted monthly claims to Medicaid for DeLap’s services under a billing code that required face-to-face assessments by a registered nurse. Medicaid paid SCH approximately $38 for each of DeLap’s visits, and this amount was then paid to DeLap. During the time under investigation, DeLap was paid approximately $2,500 for her services to the four Medicaid beneficiaries at the Claymine Drive ISL residence.” (BBM)

The fact that $2,500 is also the amount she has been ordered to forfeit leads me to believe she did not visit any of the four clients, IMO.

Also from the plea agreement:
“DeLap agrees to surrender her nursing license within six months of pleading guilty. She also agrees that she will not seek licensing again to practice as a nurse in any state of the United States or any of its territories.”

As to why the amount of the money judgement has been reduced, in requesting the change, the U.S. Attorney states:
“2. The Forfeiture Allegation in the Information sought a personal money judgment against the defendant for $106,795 in United States currency in that such sum in the aggregate, was derived, directly or indirectly, from gross proceeds traceable to the offenses.

3. On August 22, 2018, the defendant Melissa Denise Delap entered into a plea
agreement with the United States in which she agreed to plead guilty to Count One of the Information charging violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1347; and consented to the entry of a money judgment in the amount of $106,795 in United States currency. However, the United States has determined that the defendant, to defraud Medicaid, only received $2,500 during the scheme. Therefore, the United States is seeking a money judgment in the amount of $2,500 from the defendant Melissa Denise DeLap.” (BBM)

And going back to the plea agreement:
“DeLap’s Health Care Fraud Scheme:

From at least September 2016 through March 2017 (shortly before DeBrodie’s body was discovered), DeLap completed and signed DeBrodie’s Community RN Monthly Health Summary for every month in that period, falsely stating that she had performed a face-to-face assessment of DeBrodie and provided the other services she was required to do as a CRN. During this same period, DeLap also did not provide the services she was paid for to the other SCH residents on Claymine Drive, as she was paid to do.” (BBM)

So perhaps she is being ordered to pay back only the amount she acquired fraudulently between September 2016 through March 2017, while the government builds a separate case regarding the remaining amount.

I was very curious as to when DeLap’s sentencing is going to take place (“maximum penalty the Court may impose is not more than ten years of imprisonment, three years of supervised release, and a $100 mandatory special assessment per felony count of conviction which must be paid in full at the time of sentencing”), but the information doesn’t appear to be available at this time.

Source: Public Access to Court Electronic Records

 

[Gardener1850]

Yep, it could happen to anyone, and I wonder how rampant this is. I get so angry just thinking about it.

As to your questions:

From the plea agreement:
“SCH submitted monthly claims to Medicaid for DeLap’s services under a billing code that required face-to-face assessments by a registered nurse. Medicaid paid SCH approximately $38 for each of DeLap’s visits, and this amount was then paid to DeLap. During the time under investigation, DeLap was paid approximately $2,500 for her services to the four Medicaid beneficiaries at the Claymine Drive ISL residence.” (BBM)

The fact that $2,500 is also the amount she has been ordered to forfeit leads me to believe she did not visit any of the four clients, IMO.

Also from the plea agreement:
“DeLap agrees to surrender her nursing license within six months of pleading guilty. She also agrees that she will not seek licensing again to practice as a nurse in any state of the United States or any of its territories.”

As to why the amount of the money judgement has been reduced, in requesting the change, the U.S. Attorney states:
“2. The Forfeiture Allegation in the Information sought a personal money judgment against the defendant for $106,795 in United States currency in that such sum in the aggregate, was derived, directly or indirectly, from gross proceeds traceable to the offenses.

3. On August 22, 2018, the defendant Melissa Denise Delap entered into a plea
agreement with the United States in which she agreed to plead guilty to Count One of the Information charging violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1347; and consented to the entry of a money judgment in the amount of $106,795 in United States currency. However, the United States has determined that the defendant, to defraud Medicaid, only received $2,500 during the scheme. Therefore, the United States is seeking a money judgment in the amount of $2,500 from the defendant Melissa Denise DeLap.” (BBM)

And going back to the plea agreement:
“DeLap’s Health Care Fraud Scheme:

From at least September 2016 through March 2017 (shortly before DeBrodie’s body was discovered), DeLap completed and signed DeBrodie’s Community RN Monthly Health Summary for every month in that period, falsely stating that she had performed a face-to-face assessment of DeBrodie and provided the other services she was required to do as a CRN. During this same period, DeLap also did not provide the services she was paid for to the other SCH residents on Claymine Drive, as she was paid to do.” (BBM)

So perhaps she is being ordered to pay back only the amount she acquired fraudulently between September 2016 through March 2017, while the government builds a separate case regarding the remaining amount.

I was very curious as to when DeLap’s sentencing is going to take place (“maximum penalty the Court may impose is not more than ten years of imprisonment, three years of supervised release, and a $100 mandatory special assessment per felony count of conviction which must be paid in full at the time of sentencing”), but the information doesn’t appear to be available at this time.

Source: Public Access to Court Electronic Records

Thank you, IMHO. I feel a little better that at least she won't be able to keep practicing nursing and do something like this again. Do we know who put Carl's body in cement and who put him in the storage unit? I stopped following for a little bit because this case makes me so angry.

 

[jggordo]

Let's not forget too that this home is less than 10 miles from the Fulton State Mental Hospital. Where all the Doctors and Nurses are close by, with all this going on that close.

 

[inmyhumbleopinion]

Thank you, IMHO. I feel a little better that at least she won't be able to keep practicing nursing and do something like this again. Do we know who put Carl's body in cement and who put him in the storage unit? I stopped following for a little bit because this case makes me so angry.

I don’t believe that we do for sure.

However, of the five currently indicted in Carl’s death, only Sherry K. Paulo and Anthony R. Flores have been charged with “abandonment of a corpse.”
Criminal charges filed in Carl DeBrodie death

Additionally, according to documents filed in the civil case:

“Carl DeBrodie was forced to physically fight another resident for the ‘benefit and amusement of Paulo and her family,’ those events eventually causing his death.

[SBM]

Sometime after October 25, 2016, but before November 24, 2016, Carl and a resident stayed overnight at [Sherry] Paulo's residence to sleep in the basement on the concrete floor. During the middle of the night, Anthony Flores, Paulo's husband and employee of Second Chance homes, was awakened by Carl's scream. Carl was found unresponsive and convulsing on the floor of the basement, appearing to have a seizure.

Documents say instead of calling 911 or other emergency assistance, Flores and the resident carried Carl upstairs and placed him in a bathtub with the shower running. Carl was bleeding from his nose and mouth and continued to convulse in the bathtub. Documents say ‘no life-saving measures were attempted that night with respect to Carl, Carl died as a result of the episode. Carl remained in the bathtub for two or three days until he was ultimately placed into the City of Fulton trash can, encased in concrete, and placed into a storage unit.’” (BBM)

Carl DeBrodie was killed by injuries from forced fighting, court documents reveal graphic details

https://media.abc17news.com/npg-kmiz-media-us-east-1/document_dev/2018/05/30/carl debrodie death_1527699337796_11704970_ver1.0.pdf

So it appears the prosecutor agrees that Paulo and Flores are the ones responsible for putting Carl’s body in concrete inside a trash can and then in a storage unit.

 

[Laughing]

My guess, and this is a guess, is that the $2500 is owed to one specific insurance-type program. Billing for care is complex. The published total of over $100,000 could have been fraudulently billed to different agencies & companies over a period of years.

We may see more plea agreements?

JMHO YMMV LRR

Still sorry, Mr. DeBrodie & your housemates & families!