FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A hearing was held Monday in Broward County after the state filed a motion for reconsideration following Broward County Judge John Murphy’s decision last week to toss the case against a former nursing home administrator charged with nine counts of manslaughter.
Murphy ruled that he wouldn’t rehear the case, meaning the acquittal stands.
Murphy dropped the charges Friday against Jorge Carballo, who was charged after 12 patients died in 2017 at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills following Hurricane Irma.
“We were not surprised, but gloriously ecstatic,” Carballo’s attorney, James Cobb, said of Monday’s ruling.
The nursing home lost power to its chiller, disabling the air conditioning.
Carballo was accused of not properly caring for his residents, not moving them out of the facility and then going home.
Two weeks into the trial, the judge agreed with a defense motion to acquit Carballo, saying the state never explained why charges were dropped against the other three co-defendants.
The defense also argued that the state never proved gross negligence.
“We have got pictures of Jorge on the hallways bringing people fans, bringing people water, so there is no evidence of gross negligence, there is no evidence of recklessness,” Cobb said.
In its motion, the state cited two other cases when arguing that the jury is “entitled to conclude from the evidence that the defendant’s conduct constituted culpable negligence irrespective of foreseeability,” and stated that the decision to remove the patients from harm “is not a medical decision,” but one Carballo could have and should have made as the administrator of the nursing home.
Following Murphy’s decision not to rehear the case, Broward State Attorney Harold F. Pryor released a statement saying he accepts, but “strongly” disagrees with the ruling:
“We respectfully accept Judge Murphy’s decision, though we strongly disagree with much of the court’s findings and wish that a jury of Mr. Jorge Carballo’s peers had been allowed to reach a verdict.
The tragic deaths of 12 senior citizens who resided at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in 2017 deeply shocked and affected our community. I pursued criminal charges related to nine of those deaths because I, and my prosecutors, firmly believed the evidence showed those deaths were the result of culpable negligence.
I think we can all agree that all of us would want our family members to have been treated with much more care and concern.
We respectfully accept the judge’s decision, though we strongly disagree with it. We thank the judge for giving both parties a fair and well-conducted trial.”
Harold F. Pryor, Broward State Attorney
READ: FULL MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION: