Steward CEO says he won’t comply with Senate subpoena on hospital closings

BOSTON (AP) — Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre won’t comply with a subpoena to appear before a U.S. Senate committee that is investigating the hospital company’s bankruptcy, his lawyers said Wednesday.

De la Torre needs to remain silent to respect an ongoing hospital reorganization and settlement effort, his lawyers said in a letter to Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. A federal court order prohibits de la Torre from discussing anything during mediation, the lawyers said.

The Dallas-based Steward, which operated about 30 hospitals nationwide, including more than a half-dozen in Massachusetts, declared bankruptcy earlier this year. It has been trying to sell its hospitals in Massachusetts, but received inadequate bids for two of them: Carney Hospital in Boston and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in the town of Ayer, both of which closed last weekend.

A federal bankruptcy court on Wednesday approved the sale of Steward’s other hospitals in Massachusetts.

Lawyers for de la Torre said the U.S. Senate committee is seeking to turn the hearing into “a pseudo-criminal proceeding in which they use the time, not to gather facts, but to convict Dr. de la Torre in the eyes of public opinion.”

RELATED COVERAGE Republicans in Massachusetts select attorney John Deaton to take on Sen. Elizabeth Warren Nursing home oversight would be tightened under a bill passed in Massachusetts AP Decision Notes: What to expect in the Massachusetts state primaries

“It is not within this Committee’s purview to make predeterminations of alleged criminal misconduct under the auspices of an examination into Steward’s bankruptcy proceedings, and the fact that its Members have already done so smacks of a veiled attempt to sidestep Dr. de la Torre’s constitutional rights,” the letter said.

De la Torre didn’t rule out testifying before the committee at a later date.

Sanders said in a statement that he’ll be working with other members of the panel to determine the best way to press de la Torre for answers.

“Let me be clear: We will not accept this postponement. Congress will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the damage he has caused to hospitals and patients throughout America,” Sanders said. “This Committee intends to move forward aggressively to compel Dr. de la Torre to testify to the gross mismanagement of Steward Health Care.”

Massachusetts U.S. Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren, both Democrats, called de la Torre’s refusal to appear before the committee next Thursday outrageous.

The committee’s options include holding de la Torre in criminal contempt, which could result in a trial and jail time; or civil contempt, which would result in fines until he appears. Both would require a Senate vote.

Markey and Warren said de la Torre owes the public and Congress answers and must be held in contempt if he fails to appear before the committee.

“He got rich as private equity and real estate vultures picked apart, and drove into bankruptcy, hospitals that employed thousands of health care workers who served communities in Massachusetts and across the country,” the two said in a joint statement.

“De la Torre used hospitals as his personal piggy bank and lived in luxury while gutting Steward hospitals,” they added.

De la Torre also refused invitations to testify at a Boston field hearing earlier this year chaired by Markey.

Sanders has said de la Torre became obscenely wealthy by loading up hospitals from Massachusetts to Arizona with billions of dollars in debt and selling the land underneath the hospitals to real estate executives who charged unsustainably high rents.