Category: Corruption and Scandals
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The Colonial Heights Scandal – the Tip of a Very Large Iceberg
The Boys from Lakewood by James C. Sherlock Most of them are quite young. They have a lot in common. They are friends in many cases. Some grew up together. More are related through blood or marriage. Many have worked together. Some are a second generation of their families in the nursing home industry; To…
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Shell Game
by James C. Sherlock We note that the owners of Medical Facilities of America (MFA) have renamed their entire 51-facility chain “Lifeworks Rehab”. They can change it weekly if they wish. There are no rules on that front. We are left to presume it is happenstance that now none of the bad MFA headlines…
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An Alleged Wrongful Death in Colonial Heights Revisited
by James C. Sherlock I published in February 2025 a series of articles on a nursing home wrongful death scandal that was revealed when police swarmed Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center (Colonial Heights) in late December of 2024. The government has alleged in court that a woman, helpless with cerebral palsy and diabetes, died…
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Bits and Pieces
by Dick Hall-Sizemore I have always thought that local government was the most interesting level of government to watch. Officials from two jurisdictions made the news (not in a good way) last week. Martinsville. A member of city council, Aaron Rawls, filed a lawsuit in federal court charging that the city manager and a deputy sheriff had…
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Where’s the Local Media on This National Story?
by James A. Bacon A big national story has landed in Virginia, and state media, which could help the public sift through conflicting charges and countercharges, have been totally silent. In a 2022 trial heard around the world, New York Attorney General Letitia James famously secured a $354 million judgment against Donald Trump and the…
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Virginia’s Nursing Homes and the Courts
by James C. Sherlock Readers have stuck with me for a long time as I have reported on the dire state of many of Virginia’s nursing homes. Recently the employees of one of the worst have been charged with abuse and neglect in the death of a patient. Her suffering was what can only…
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General Assembly Upends Bill to Hold Virginia Nursing Homes Accountable
by James C. Sherlock Fish gotta swim. The General Assembly gotta do the bidding of the nursing home lobby. Patients be damned – literally. Consider the fate of House Bill 2253 in the 2025 General Assembly. As introduced, it would have empowered the Health Commissioner to impose serious sanctions on our worst nursing homes; but…
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Do No Harm
By James C. Sherlock One translation of the Hippocratic Oath reads: “I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is (harmful).” That will prove cold comfort to the thousands of Virginia patients subjected to unnecessary danger, pain,…
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A Public Health Crisis in Central Virginia
by James C. Sherlock A terribly injured 33-year-old homeless male schizophrenic recently was found lying hidden in a church in Chesterfield County. He was discovered with multiple displaced fractures in the lower pubic bone, a break on the left side of the sacrum (base of the spine), a large amount of blood in his pelvis,…
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Too Many of Virginia’s Skilled Nursing Facilities Present a Public Health Problem
by James C. Sherlock In a recent 12-month period overlapping 2022 and 2023, almost 8,400 Medicare patients alone were admitted to a hospital directly from or within 30 days after discharge from one of Virginia’s 280+ skilled nursing facilities. We simply do not know how many eventually died as a proximate outcome of poor care…
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Is There a Doctor in the House?
by James C. Sherlock Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center (Colonial Heights) is in the news again. New story, similar outcomes — a patient either dying or dreadfully injured — both ignored. The first time 18 staff members were arrested. This time it was a physician who allegedly wasn’t even there. That was the problem.…
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Virginia’s New Jersey Problem
Updated Jan 27 @ 16:30 by James C. Sherlock New-found evidence points to New Jersey-operated business plans that may result in severe threats to patient health and safety in up to 56 Virginia nursing homes. At least one person has already died. Current government allegations in the wrongful death scandal surrounding Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing…
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A Horrible Death in Colonial Heights – Part Four. Dangerous Chameleons
by James C. Sherlock Virginia authorities have criminally charged 18 employees of Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center (CHNRC) with criminal acts in the terrible suffering and death of a woman from sepsis alleged to have occurred because of negligence in that facility. In Part 3 of this series we discussed who else may be…
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Will Sunlight Fall on Stoney’s Selfish Severances?
by Jon Baliles Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water in Richmond, another scandalous legacy of Levar Stoney has been tossed in Mayor Avula’s lap, and he is just barely two weeks into his term. The cesspool of corruption and inefficiency that has returned to City Hall in recent…
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A Horrible Death in Colonial Heights – Part Three. Who Is Responsible?
by James C. Sherlock The government alleges that a woman patient helpless with cerebral palsy and diabetes was so badly neglected at Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center (CHRNC) that: It is important for justice to be fully served to peel back the onion — to address the system in which they worked. CHNRC is…