State Seeks Receivership for Troubled Rutland Eldercare Homes

Our House Too in Rutland Credit: File: Caleb Kenna ©️ Seven Days

State regulators want to place a group of troubled Rutland eldercare homes under the control of an outside manager for the second time in four years, following fresh reports of abuse and neglect.

The three residential care homes, collectively known as Our House, featured prominently in a 2019 investigative series jointly reported by Seven Days and Vermont Public about problems plaguing the eldercare industry. They were placed under a temporary, court-ordered receivership in 2021 to address a pattern of understaffing and inadequate training.

But the problems have only continued, state regulators say. And on Monday, one of the group’s former residential managers was brought up on criminal charges.

Dexter Agasi, 55, pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor counts of abuse of a vulnerable adult stemming from an April incident at Our House Too during which, investigators say, he physically assaulted a woman in her eighties who is living with advanced dementia.

The woman relies on staff members to perform all of her daily activities and was sitting at a table in the dining room when two teenage staff members were told to remove her fingernail polish.

The woman became agitated, as people with advanced dementia often do, prompting Agasi to shout at her from another room. He then walked over to her table, shoved a chair against it and grabbed her neck hard enough for witnesses to notice his fingers “visibly sinking” into her skin, court records show.

Agasi then yelled in the woman’s ear to shut up and pushed her wheelchair into her room before closing the door behind them, investigators say. They remained in the room for more than five minutes, during which time the woman could be heard loudly screaming.

The teen staff members tried to open the door to intervene but said Agasi’s body was blocking the door, court records show. When they finally got inside, they found the woman red-faced and weeping.

The staffers reported the incident, which was caught on the home’s cameras, to longtime owner Paula Patorti, who explained that Agasi had used a pressure point technique to “soothe” the woman, court records show. Skeptical, the young staffers reported the incident to a different colleague, who notified the state.

The report prompted the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living to temporarily ban new admissions at Our House while it investigated.

This wasn’t the first time regulators had learned about concerning altercations between Our House staffers and patients.

In 2020, a caregiver was charged with assault for hitting a resident with dementia and grabbing his genitals during an altercation. The 83-year-old was bleeding when another caregiver found him, Seven Days and VPR previously reported.

The following year, an agitated resident at one of the homes charged a caregiver from behind. The worker turned a shoulder into the resident, who lost balance, fell over and was knocked out. The resident was eventually taken to the hospital and diagnosed with a subdural hematoma before dying two days later, according to a regulatory report.

Speaking to state investigators in May, Agasi said he often uses different hands-on techniques to restrain or calm flailing patients. He acknowledged that he had not been trained on such techniques but said Patorti was aware of his approach.

He said he took the woman into her room and closed the door because he did not want the noise to disturb other residents. He also showed investigators previous videos he had taken on his personal cellphone of the woman screaming — a violation of patient privacy.

Patorti, who has owned Our House for more than 20 years, declined to speak with Seven Days for this story.

But she told state investigators that she indeed knew about Agasi’s hands-on techniques, describing them as “instinctual” responses to danger, court records show. She said she did not report the incident with the woman, which is required whenever abuse is alleged, because she had reviewed the footage and saw no reason for alarm.

In May, the Attorney General’s Office filed a complaint on behalf of DAIL, asking a judge to appoint a receiver for the three Our House homes. The complaint cited numerous violations that had been documented at the homes since the last receivership expired in October 2022.

That included understaffed units, caregivers who had not received the required 12 hours of training and incontinent patients who were observed left in soiled clothing for hours at a time.

The judge’s decision is expected in the coming weeks. If appointed, the receiver would take control of the homes’ decision making — and could recommend that the homes be closed.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated Paula Patorti’s first name and the year of the Seven Days/Vermont Public investigative series.