She 'Felt Like a Prisoner'
By Joe Calderone and Thomas Zambito
Originally published by the Daily News, June 11, 2001
An 80-year-old woman says a Brooklyn nursing home held her against her will and denied her repeated requests to leave so they could continue charging her $8,000 a month in fees.
Anna Beck, a former nurse, charges in a federal lawsuit that the Crown Nursing and Rehabilitation Center illegally obtained control of her finances, took more than $225,000 of her money, then prevented her from leaving the facility after she was well enough to take care of herself.
With the help of a Bay Ridge lawyer and a neighbor, Beck left the Crown center and now lives at her Marine Park, Brooklyn, home with her wheelchair-bound, 85-year-old sister, Catherine.
The sisters are suing the nursing home for $2.3 million, alleging false imprisonment, physical and mental abuse, and violations of their privacy rights.
"They were depriving someone of their liberty for financial gain," said Michael Connors, Beck's attorney. "They were saying Anna wasn't competent, but she was competent to sign checks to pay the nursing home."
Nursing home officials counter that they sought a court-ordered guardian to look after Beck's affairs because they were not sure she could live on her own. They say they did nothing improper.
"The allegations are without merit," said Crown Nursing and Rehabilitation Center attorney Howard Fensterman. "There was a question about the competency of the resident. We left it up to a judge to decide."
Beck's troubles started in May 1999, when she signed herself into Coney Island Hospital suffering from congestive heart failure. After a brief stay, she was transferred to Crown for rehabilitation.
The nursing home—where Catherine Beck, suffering from dementia, already lived—illegally required Anna Beck to pay a $50,400 deposit, her suit alleges.
At Crown, Beck slowly regained her strength, and by November 1999 she was able to eat, bathe, walk and dress herself. She felt ready to go home, though her repeated requests to do so were ignored, her suit alleges.
All the while, Beck was paying for nursing home care at $265 a day out of her own funds. Beck draws a small city pension and had nearly $700,000 in savings.
Beck asked her Brooklyn neighbor, Louis Messina, 37, to help her get out of Crown. Messina, a city correction officer, regularly visited her at the nursing home.
With Messina's help, Beck slipped out of the nursing home one day in October 1999 and went to Connors' law office.
"She was sharp as a tack," recalled Connors, who serves on Gov. Pataki's advisory committee on the aging.
Later in the day, she returned willingly to the nursing home.
Connors' efforts to have Beck released were stymied a month later when Crown officials asked a Brooklyn judge to appoint a guardian for Beck.
Beck's life at the nursing home, meanwhile, became even more restrictive, she charges. She was not permitted to leave the home, and Messina's attempts to visit were rebuffed by Crown, the suit alleges.
In her suit, Beck charges nursing home staff went to her Marine Park home without her permission, took her financial records and presented her with checks to sign to pay for care she said she didn't need.
"Crown's plan of care for me is to keep me at the nursing home, where I would remain even after my resources are exhausted and I am eligible for Medicaid benefits," she said.
Ulterior Motives?
Nursing home officials said they were concerned Beck might fall victim to Messina, whom they thought had become "overly involved" in her affairs.
Beck, however, said Messina was a godsend. "I have a lot of faith in him," Beck said.
The lawyer appointed by the court to evaluate the case, Rose Ann Branda, observed in her report that "Anna felt like a prisoner at the nursing home."
Finally, four months after she first asked to go home, the courts granted her wish, as long as Connors and Messina would serve as her co-guardians.
Beck, a former nurse at Kings County hospital, was released in February 2000 to return to the two-story, semi-attached Marine Park house where she has lived since 1929.
She and Catherine Beck have been living at home for more than a year with the help of a live-in home health-care worker.
The state Health Department has referred a complaint about the Beck case to the state attorney general's office.
A Pataki administration official said the state is concerned about nursing homes initiating guardianship proceedings against residents such as Beck that may deny them basic freedoms.
"We believe there are instances where institutions have inappropriately used the guardianship proceedings against elderly residents," said Dan Degnan, general counsel to the New York State Office for the Aging in Albany.
