A Nursing Home Owner Got a Trump Pardon. The Families of His Patients Got Nothing.
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The Bottom Line
Nursing home owner pardoned by Trump while families of deceased patients remain unable to collect $19 million in court-ordered damages.
How This Affects You
Nursing home residents and families may face reduced accountability for facility negligence, increasing risk of patient harm without financial recourse.
AI Summary
Joseph Schwartz, owner of Skyline Healthcare nursing home chain, received a full pardon from President Trump in November after serving just three months of a three-year federal prison sentence for a $39 million payroll tax scheme. A judge awarded nearly $19 million in damages to the family of Doris Coulson, a Hillview Post Acute patient in Arkansas who died in 2016 after allegedly being fed despite a "nothing by mouth" order, but the family has been unable to collect because Schwartz liquidated his Arkansas assets. The pardon negated Schwartz's criminal conviction and undercuts federal efforts to recover the remaining unpaid taxes owed to the IRS, even as his nursing home operations faced multiple wrongful death lawsuits tied to patient outcomes. Schwartz paid more than $1 million to lobbyists and was championed by far-right activist Laura Loomer, whose claims contradicting the court record were echoed in the White House's justification for the pardon. The Coulson family's lawyer continues searching for Schwartz's assets in other states to satisfy the judgment.
What's Being Done
The Coulson family's lawyer continues searching for Schwartz's assets in other states to satisfy the judgment.
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