The photos of the emaciated corpse reminded the judge of images he’d seen from Nazi concentration camps. Except the man in this case had lived in one of George Houser’s nursing homes.
Evidence in the first-of-its-kind trial showed that residents of Houser’s three Georgia nursing homes suffered severe bedsores and lay in their own waste in rooms with no air conditioning and infested with flies.
After sitting as judge and jury during a month-long trial, U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy said he found the conditions at the nursing homes “barbaric and inhumane.” Last month, Murphy sent the Harvard-educated lawyer to federal prison for 20 years.
In Sunday's newspaper, the AJC looks at how the Justice Department could possibly pursue a new way to prosecute those who swindle health plans for the poor, elderly and disabled. It's a story you'll only get by picking up a copy of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution or logging on to the paper's iPad app. Subscribe today.
Already a subscriber? You can read the complete article on e-edition here.
About the Author
