Ex-employees cited problems at a Bucks County nursing home long before officials allegedly hid sex abuse

In May, prosecutors from the state Attorney General’s Office accused administrators at The Landing of Southampton, an assisted-living facility in Bucks County, of covering up sexual abuse.

Three female dementia patients in the 109-bed, Upper Southampton Township home had been sexually assaulted by a male patient who was also suffering from dementia, authorities said. But rather than report the crimes, prosecutors say, the top two officials at The Landing tried to cover up the incidents and discouraged their subordinates from filing written reports or notifying county authorities, as required by state law.

It all unraveled when an anonymous tipster called the Attorney General’s Office, sparking an investigation, according to court filings.

Now, with the criminal prosecution of those administrators underway, three former employees, including a former director of health and wellness, have come forward with other complaints about the facility.

The Landing was often understaffed, they said, and some of its workers seemed ill-qualified to meet the residents’ needs. The former staffers said they were told to follow “a standing order” not to call 911 immediately when a patient was injured, as state regulations require. And it was not unusual, they said, for staffers working the night shift to sleep on the job, leaving patients unsupervised.

Michael Juno, the vice president of operations for Leisure Care, the Seattle-based company that operates The Landing of Southampton, declined to comment on the employees’ accounts.

As for the sexual-assault cases, he said Leisure Care had “separated employment” with the administrators who were criminally charged. And he said the company was cooperating with law enforcement “to ensure all of our residents continue to experience the exceptional care they deserve and expect.”

Inspection reports from the state Department of Human Services show that The Landing has been cited for violations of state standards for assisted-living facilities several times since it opened in November 2019, including for failure to report to the county resident falls or hospital visits, improper storage of medicine, and staff members who lacked required training.

» READ MORE: Administrators at a Bucks County nursing home failed to report three residents’ sexual abuse, prosecutors said

In April 2020, an investigator from the state Department of Human Services found evidence that a staffer at The Landing refused to help a resident who fell and texted a picture to a coworker saying, “I’m not doing a fall report. ... They can kiss my [expletive].”

An inspection report from February found that staff didn’t respond to a resident’s emergency alarm for up to three hours due to a malfunction in the system.

Those issues have been addressed, according to follow-up reports from DHS, and The Landing continues to do business under a provisional license up for review in October.

After evidence of the sex assaults was uncovered by state investigators, Ashley Harker, The Landing’s general manager, and Joy Alfonsi, the director of health and wellness, were charged with failure to report abuse, neglect of a care-dependent person, and related offenses. (The patient who prosecutors say assaulted the women was not charged because of what authorities described as his diminished mental capacity.)

Harker and Alfonsi, who have since left their jobs at The Landing, have denied any wrongdoing. They declined to comment, as did their attorneys. Harker has since been hired as the executive director at Fox Trail Senior Living, a facility in Deptford, Gloucester County. Representatives from Fox Trail did not return a request for comment.

» READ MORE: ‘Watching people die’: Pa. vets’ nursing home failed residents during COVID-19 outbreak

Even before the administrators’ arrests, some employees had grown disillusioned with The Landing, which charges residents in its dementia-care unit as much as $7,000 a month, former staffers and relatives of patients say.

Sandy Scott-McBride left her job in September 2020 after just seven weeks as its director of health and wellness. She said she did so in part because administrators revised medical records after she submitted them. And more than once, she said, administrators including Harker — over her objections — sought to admit patients who required more medical care than she believed The Landing could provide.

In those cases, she said, she worried about patient safety. She finally decided to leave, she said, after her concerns were ignored by senior staff.

Scott-McBride said she didn’t make that decision lightly. “I felt very close and connected to the residents, and I was worried about their safety,” she said.

Another former employee, Jeanne Black, said she was fired after she brought her concerns about the treatment of patients at The Landing to officials at the Bucks County Area Agency on Aging, which along with state officials oversees the facility. Black, The Landing’s receptionist, filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit, saying she was intimidated through anonymous threats and ultimately forced out of her job.

“The day I left there, I left in tears, because I thought I was leaving the residents in bad hands,” Black said. “But I did all that I could.”

Leisure Care, in responding to Black’s lawsuit, denied her allegations of substandard care and said she was fired for disruptive behavior and insubordination.

Dave Finnegan, a former medical technician at The Landing, said he was troubled by the inattentive care some residents received. It was not uncommon, he said, to find a colleague who was working the overnight shift asleep on the job. Meanwhile, residents with pressing medical needs, including a diabetic who needed regular insulin shots, were neglected, he said.

“We would do what we could, but of course these people weren’t receiving the proper amount of care, due to other people’s workload,” Finnegan said.

Finnegan was most troubled, he said, by what he described as a management edict not to call 911 without permission from top supervisors. When one resident, John Partington, fell in his room in May 2020, Finnegan said, staff were instructed to put him back into bed and monitor him. He wasn’t taken to the hospital until hours later after he cried out in pain, Finnegan said.

Partington, 92, died about a month later. His daughter, Amy Smith, said in a recent interview that while she doesn’t blame her father’s death on The Landing, she wishes he had been given more attentive care in his final days.

“I thought I was doing what was best for him to extend his life, and it didn’t turn out that way,” Smith said. “And I still have guilt over that.”

The criminal case against Alfonsi and Harker, meanwhile, is pending. Attorney General Josh Shapiro, in announcing the charges against the two administrators, condemned their actions in the sexual-assault incidents.

“The defendants were responsible for the safety and well-being of the residents in their care,” Shapiro said. “Had they followed through on the mandated reporting required by law, these assaults would have been prevented.”