The measure would also empower the state — through eminent domain — to assume control of hospitals that are at risk of closure because of financial instability.

Sen. Saud Anwar, a South Windsor Democrat who is co-chair of the Public Health Committee, said he raised the proposal after researching what authority other states had to intervene in dire situations.

CT officials vow 3 hospitals in bankruptcy won’t close

Rhode Island has a policy that permits hospital receivership, and state officials in Massachusetts can seize hospitals through eminent domain, as was recently done in the case of St. Elizabeth Medical Center, a Steward Health Care-operated facility. Steward has also filed for bankruptcy.

Earlier this month, Prospect Medical sought Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Northern Texas. The chief executive officer of Prospect’s three Connecticut hospitals — Manchester, Rockville and Waterbury — said payroll continues to be met and Gov. Ned Lamont vowed that the hospitals would remain open.

But it’s unclear what the filing will mean for the pending agreement Prospect signed in 2022 to sell its three Connecticut hospitals to Yale New Haven Health.

Attorney General William Tong recently commented on the need for stronger state authority to intervene when hospitals confront financial hardship.

“We need stronger power and authority to step in when situations like this happen,” Tong said at a press conference last week. “The Rhode Island Attorney General, for example, has receivership power that I don’t have, and he exercised that power in Rhode Island. … As I look at the legislators over here, we’re going to have the conversation about what we need to do in Connecticut.”

New wrinkle in sale of three struggling CT hospitals. ‘We are watching this closely’: state official

The language of Anwar’s bill says lawmakers are trying to “prevent abrupt service interruptions and ensure the continuity of health care services at hospitals,” as well as “allow the state to coordinate long-term solutions when a hospital is in financial distress or experiencing an operational crisis.”

Tong said he supports the measure.

“We are aware of the proposal and would support an expansion of the state’s authority to intervene in these types of situations, including receivership which is not currently an option in Connecticut,” he said in a statement. “More broadly, we remain concerned by the growing influence of private equity over health care, and the challenges posed by consolidation of health care delivery in Connecticut. There needs to be greater oversight and transparency regarding these transactions and acquisitions.”

Nicole Rall, a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Hospital Association, said receivership and eminent domain don’t solve issues of financial distress.

“CHA looks forward to continuing conversations with lawmakers related to what would be helpful in preserving patient care and protecting jobs during a time of crisis, but we also must recognize that receivership and eminent domain do not solve the problems that cause financial hardship in the first place,” Rall said. “Important questions need to be answered about defining financial hardship, how receivership would be used, and why eminent domain for this use should even be considered. We look forward to continuing to work collaboratively on solutions.”

A spokesperson for Prospect Medical did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

The Connecticut Mirror wrote about the lack of a receivership law in Connecticut last year as Prospect was dealing with financial difficulties and hospital officials were sounding the alarm about deteriorating conditions at the facilities.

The CT Mirror obtained emails that showed a top Lamont adviser raised concerns about the absence of a receivership policy.

“Other states [like Rhode Island] have clear authority to put a hospital into receivership, we do not,” Matthew Brokman, then a senior aide and now chief of staff, wrote in an email.

A spokeswoman for Lamont said Monday the governor plans to also put forward measures that would bolster state oversight of health care.

“We’ve yet to review [Anwar’s] proposal but the governor plans to re-introduce legislation this session that would strengthen the state’s oversight of financial transactions involving hospitals and other health care institutions,” spokeswoman Julia Bergman said.

Although bills that would regulate private equity investment in health care failed to win passage last year, Anwar said he’s optimistic the receivership bill will have good support this legislative session, especially in light of the bankruptcy filing.

“Unfortunately, because of some of the bad actors in private equity, we are seeing hospitals go through significant financial trouble,” Anwar said. “As a last resort, if things do not work out, the state has to [be able to] intervene. I feel like this is life insurance for health care system.”

A Yale New Haven Health spokesperson has said, “Prospect’s decision to file for bankruptcy is much larger than just the state of Connecticut – this is a national matter and of grave concern to many hospitals around the country.

“Yale New Haven Health raised the alarm about this inevitability in the lawsuit we filed last year, recognizing Prospect’s lack of investment and mismanagement of the Connecticut Prospect hospitals,” the spokesperson said recently. “The situation was further exacerbated by their lack of payment to the pension plans and growing debt to the state, local governments and vendors. Many of these same issues were referenced in lawsuits filed by the states of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island regarding Prospect’s mismanagement of their hospitals in those states. We will closely monitor the proceedings and determine what steps, if any, YNHHS will take as part of this process.”

Jenna Carlesso and Dave Altimari are reporters for The Connecticut Mirror (https://ctmirror.org/ ). Copyright 2025 © The Connecticut Mirror.

In the summer of 2022, a source called me with a tip about towing. “The details of how this works,” he said, “your head’s gonna spin.”

It turns out Connecticut has a more than 100-year-old law that allows tow truck companies to sell someone’s car 15 days after they haul it away, if they can convince the Department of Motor Vehicles that the vehicle is worth $1,500 or less.

The time frame, we learned by calling every state, is one of the shortest in the country.

So I set out to answer what I thought was a simple question: How many cars have towing companies sold?

I submitted a request to the DMV under the Connecticut Freedom of Information Act.

Two-and-a-half years later, it seems the DMV doesn’t even know the answer — and we’re still waiting for thousands of records.

In the fall of 2022, the DMV told me it would cost us $47,000 to get the documents. Not only did it sound like the sticker price for a new car, but I realized we were in for a long fight. (The DMV now says the estimate was an error.)

We had sought one-page forms called H-100s that tow truck companies must submit to the DMV to get permission to sell someone’s car. Those forms could help us find out a lot of information — which companies are trying to sell cars quickly and what the DMV does with those requests.

Getting the documents was key to learning about towing practices in Connecticut and the real impact they have on people’s lives.

After asking the DMV to produce an itemized accounting of the $47,000 bill, we asked our attorney to appeal to the Freedom of Information Commission. Our attorney negotiated a compromise in April 2023. We agreed to pay $1,900 to cover the agency’s costs of redacting thousands of documents our request entailed.

The next month, we got our first group of forms, and it finally felt like we were on our way, until I opened the first batch and saw this:

In addition to being heavily redacted, many forms were handwritten, and the DMV didn’t seem to have a database or a system for keeping track of them. Agency officials initially told us there were 11,700 documents. Then they told us there were more than 7,000 for 2022 alone. Now they say there are about 4,100 for that year. The DMV hasn’t been able to explain the discrepancies. Officials also said the request has taken time because they have to manually redact thousands of documents.

The DMV’s slow drip of providing the forms made us have to look for other ways to find people whose cars were towed and then sold without their consent.

My colleague Ginny Monk, who covers housing, had heard complaints from renters about tow truck companies that had contracts with their apartment complexes. People were getting towed for not backing into their parking spaces or failing to properly display their parking stickers. Many people couldn’t get to the tow lot, which was at least a half-hour away, and others just didn’t have the money to pay the fees.

Under the law, towing companies must notify the local police within two hours of removing a car. So we submitted public records requests to several police departments for their call logs.

We also requested incident reports from the police department where one tow lot was located and found dozens of complaints, most from people who said they either couldn’t get their cars back or were being overcharged.

The police records also referenced DMV investigations into some of the same incidents. So we submitted a FOIA request to the DMV in February for investigations into several towing companies. That took four months but gave us more insight into the problem.

“It may be just a car to some,” Melissa Anderson of Hamden, Connecticut, wrote in her complaint, “but for my family it was sanity, peace of mind stolen from us.”

As we got closer to publishing our story last fall, the DMV began to send us more forms. We now have roughly 4,200. But the agency’s lawyer has told us there are still thousands more it has yet to turn over.

Just days after our story was published, at least two bills were introduced in the state legislature to address some of the issues raised in our reporting. The DMV said it would undertake a “comprehensive review” of towing practices, and the speaker of the House promised that fixing the towing laws will be a “priority” this legislative session.

We hope the interest generated by our story will induce the DMV to release the remaining records soon. Meanwhile, if you’ve had your car towed in Connecticut, we hope you’ll take some time to fill out this questionnaire: propublica.org/getinvolved/car-towing-connecticut-help-propublica-investigate.

CT Mirror Reporter Ginny Monk contributed to this story.

Dave Altimari is a reporter for the Connecticut Mirror. Copyright 2025 @ CTMirror (ctmirror.org).

The Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles said Monday the agency would undertake a “comprehensive review” of towing practices in response to an investigation by The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica. The reporting found that some low-income residents were losing their cars because they couldn’t afford the recovery fees and had a short window to pay before towing companies were allowed to sell their vehicles.

The review comes as the 2025 legislative session opens Wednesday. The leader of the state House of Representatives said he will support efforts this session to lengthen the time period that tow truck companies have to wait before requesting the DMV’s permission to sell people’s vehicles.

“This will be a priority,” said House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford. “I mean, we are all pretty shocked by it.”

State law allows tow companies to seek permission from the DMV to sell a vehicle worth $1,500 or less just 15 days after towing it — one of the shortest such periods in the country, CT Mirror and ProPublica found.

The investigation, which was published Sunday, detailed how Connecticut’s laws have come to favor tow companies at the expense of owners. In many cases, people’s cars were towed from their apartment complexes not for violating the law, but because their complex-issued parking sticker had expired or they weren’t properly backed into a space.

As towing and storage charges mount, some towing companies set up additional barriers, like only taking cash. Others won’t release cars until they are registered in the person’s name, even if the driver just bought the vehicle and wasn’t required to register it yet under DMV rules.

The investigation found that the 15-day window was sometimes less time than it takes to get a DMV registration appointment and less than the time it takes to get a hearing for a complaint challenging a tow.

When presented with the findings, DMV Commissioner Tony Guerrera said that the 15-day window “strikes the right balance for consumers and towers.”

But on Monday, Guerrera said in a statement that his agency will propose changes to the Legislature to ensure that policies are updated and clear.

“We will undertake a comprehensive review of the issues highlighted in the article and engage in substantive discussions with legislative advocates,” Guerrera said. “Our proactive approach will involve actively participating in the legislative development of proposals to modernize the regulation of tow companies.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Gov. Ned Lamont said he is “open to reviewing proposed changes to the law.”

Legislative leaders said they are concerned about the impact of the towing law on low-income residents particularly.

“It’s not a friendly system for people who have probably the least amount of time and resources to navigate a tricky system,” said Ritter. “So it really is a double whammy. It’s an unfair policy, and then the only way to undo it requires an inordinate amount of effort and time and resources that a lot of these individuals don’t have.”

State Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, the upcoming co-chair of the General Law Committee, said he’s already spoken with the DMV, Democratic leadership and the governor’s office about legislation he is drafting that would lengthen the 15-day window before a sale, expand the forms of payment that towing companies are required to take, and prohibit companies from patrolling private parking lots looking for cars to tow. Instead, they would be required to wait for a complaint.

“The tow trucks are just driving around looking for a problem,” he said.

A bill that Lemar proposed in 2023 to require tow companies to accept credit cards, in addition to other measures, passed the legislature’s Transportation Committee. But facing opposition from towing companies and property owners, it wasn’t called on the House floor.

Timothy Vibert, president of the Towing and Recovery Professionals of Connecticut, said towing companies are willing to talk about changes to the laws but that legislators don’t want to address the underlying reason for tows — lots of people driving unregistered and uninsured cars.

“The reason they’re being towed is because they’ve done something wrong,” Vibert said. “Yes, there are some unscrupulous towers out there, and that’s just the way they are, OK? But you can’t change every piece of legislation to push on and make the towers be the fall guy.”

John Souza, president of the Connecticut Coalition of Property Owners, said that 15 days seems like a short window, particularly for some of his tenants who get paid each month through Social Security, but allowing towers to patrol parking lots is helpful for larger apartment buildings. He doesn’t live at the rental properties he owns, he said, so it would be hard for him to call towing companies at all hours of the day.

“As a landlord, I get it,” Souza said. “You have to have rules, and people unfortunately take advantage. If the rules are too slack, people take advantage of them. There’s nothing worse than coming home after a long, hard day and someone’s in your parking space.”

House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, said his office quickly researched the issue following the story’s publication and found there’s a longer window for reclaiming minibikes before sale than there is for some vehicles.

“Fifteen days seems like a very short amount of time for anybody to be able to react and kind of do whatever they have to do to try to secure their vehicle before there’s an opportunity for it to be sold,” Rojas said. “For those reasons, and perhaps others too, it merits a look for sure.”

He said the issue “struck a nerve” with him and others because of how important it is to have reliable access to transportation.

House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said he is willing to consider changes to the state’s towing law.

“I’m concerned about the potentially predatory nature of towing practices in Connecticut,” Candelora said. “A number of years ago, I thought we had addressed this issue by requiring the posting of signs and the cost of towing prior to allowing the towing of vehicles, but obviously there seems to be an issue that still needs to be addressed.”

Leadership in the state Senate said they were interested in exploring the issue. Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said there’s an “issue here about fairness” that should be examined.

Melissa Anderson was trying to wrestle her squirmy 2-year-old daughter into a winter coat in December 2021 when she heard the neighbors yelling outside, “She’s coming right now!”

Anderson immediately knew what was happening. The tow truck company that regularly roamed her Hamden, Connecticut, apartment complex was back, and it had zeroed in on her recently purchased 1998 Dodge Neon.

She rushed downstairs only to see a MyHoopty.com tow truck driving away with her car.

Her temporary parking pass from the apartment complex had expired. She’d tried to get an extension because her Department of Motor Vehicles appointment to register the car was two days away. But she said the management wouldn’t give her one.

“I only came upstairs to put the baby’s jacket on,” Anderson said. “It was within like five minutes, my car was gone.”

She never saw her car again.

Exactly 15 days later, as Anderson realized she didn’t have the money to pay the mounting bill, MyHoopty took advantage of a little-known state law available to towing companies: It submitted a form to the Connecticut DMV to sell Anderson’s car.

On the form, MyHoopty typed that the Dodge was worth $600, half of what Anderson had paid for it less than three months earlier. And, DMV records show, the agency quickly approved MyHoopty’s application to sell the car.

What happened to Anderson exemplifies how Connecticut’s laws have come to favor tow companies at the expense of low-income residents. Connecticut’s window allowing towers to sell people’s cars is one of the shortest in the country — just 15 days if they deem the value to be $1,500 or less. Only two states — Iowa and North Carolina — have shorter time spans. Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island require at least 60 days, giving owners more time to reclaim their vehicles.

The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica reviewed thousands of the forms that towers submit requesting the DMV’s permission to sell people’s cars. Many cases didn’t start with parking tickets, accidents or police involvement. Instead, people were towed for breaking parking rules at their apartment complexes.

Towing and storage charges can quickly add up to several hundred dollars. And once cars are hauled away, some tow companies make it harder for people to get their cars back. Some only take cash. Others refuse to release cars unless they’re registered in the person’s name — even if that person had recently bought the vehicle and wasn’t required to register it yet.

In some cases, the 15-day window can be shorter than the time it takes to get a registration appointment at the DMV. And it’s far shorter than it takes for a complaint to be heard challenging the legitimacy of a tow.

When cars are sold, the owners are again at a disadvantage. Under Connecticut law, tow companies are required to hold on to the proceeds for one year so owners can claim the money. After that, tow companies are supposed to subtract their storage fees and turn over any remaining funds to the state. But the DMV has never established a process for towers to submit the money, and the state treasurer’s office said it has no record of receiving any money from the sale of a towed car.

How to lose a car in 15 days

Towers can charge up to $125, plus $5.65 per mile. With daily storage fees, charges can quickly add up to hundreds of dollars. If the owner doesn’t pay, the tower can notify the DMV of intent to sell.

That’s the system Anderson faced as she fought with MyHoopty and sought the DMV’s help.

“We live paycheck to paycheck and Christmas was coming, and we just couldn’t afford to try and get the car back,” Anderson said.

Michael Festa, the owner of MyHoopty, said he is simply following the law, which allows property owners to remove cars that break rules. In an emailed response to written questions, Festa said he’s never turned over money to the state because the proceeds have never satisfied the towing and storage bill.

The majority of the cars are “in severe mechanical and structural disrepair,” he said. “Any vehicle of any value is either redeemed by its registered owner or lending institution.”

Exactly how many Connecticut residents this system affects has been hard to pin down because the DMV has been slow to provide information. The CT Mirror requested the DMV forms 2 1/2 years ago under the state Freedom of Information Act. Agency officials initially said the request would cost $47,000 but lowered the cost after the CT Mirror’s attorney intervened. Yet the DMV still hasn’t produced all the forms.

The DMV is supposed to review each form and record the car’s book value in the top right corner, which ensures tow companies don’t undervalue cars and sell them faster. If a car is worth more than $1,500, towers have to wait 45 days. The book values regularly exceed the towers’ estimates.

Still, more than half of the roughly 4,200 forms the CT Mirror and ProPublica have received so far show the tow company requested to sell the vehicle citing the 15-day rule. In nearly 700 of those cases, the company asked to sell a car within three weeks.

DMV Commissioner Tony Guerrera said in a written statement that he believes the 15-day window “strikes the right balance for consumers and towers,” protecting drivers’ rights while ensuring vehicles don’t “remain on a tow company’s property for months, amassing large storage charges.”

The DMV said it rigorously reviews the towers’ forms and requests additional documentation from them when their estimate differs greatly from the book value. Officials also said that the initial $47,000 records fee was “an error” and that the request has taken time because they have to manually redact thousands of documents.

State Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, who co-chairs the legislature’s Transportation Committee, said lawmakers need to look at the 15-day threshold and other towing practices in the upcoming legislative session.

“There are obvious abuses happening to residents across Connecticut, and those impacted are folks with lower economic means who can’t possibly be expected to access that amount of cash in such a quick time frame,” said Lemar, who will chair the General Law Committee, which oversees consumer protection, next session. “There needs to be reform within the DMV, but I think there’s also clear and obvious consumer protection issues.”

“Somebody Is Going to Get Hurt”

Connecticut’s towing law initially passed in 1921 with good intentions: As more people owned cars, more were abandoned, and municipalities needed a way to get them off the streets.

As car ownership grew with the development of highways and suburbs, state lawmakers in the 1960s increased penalties for abandoning vehicles and made it easier for towing companies to sell them.

Before those adjustments, towers had to store a vehicle for 90 days. If no one claimed it, they were required to notify the owner of the intended sale via registered mail and advertise it three times in the newspaper. In 1963, the legislature decided to allow sales within 30 days if the vehicle was worth $35 or less, about $360 today.

Lawmakers cut that time in half to 15 days in 1987 for vehicles worth less than $500 at the time. Local police officials said in public hearings that there were so many junk cars that even local scrapyards didn’t want them and that the shorter time frame would help towns dispose of abandoned vehicles more quickly.

Connecticut’s Towing Laws Compared to Nearby States

The state has the shortest time before sale among northeastern states.

Note: In Connecticut, New Hampshire and New York, the time varies based on the age or value of the vehicle. Maryland has a different time period for Baltimore. (Lucas Waldron/ProPublica)

The measure did face some pushback, though. State Sen. Thomas Upson, R-Waterbury, questioned whether the new law would violate due process because it did not offer a sufficient way for drivers to challenge a tow. Still, the measure passed easily.

Lawmakers continued to crack down on abandoned cars through the 1990s. They expanded the ability of tow companies to remove vehicles from private lots, where residents and owners complained people were parking without permission, and lowered to 45 days the time after which more expensive vehicles could be sold.

But by the late 1990s, lawmakers started to recognize the effects that towing policies had on people with low incomes.

“I’ve seen a car towed overnight and people not able to pay one and two days of charges, and every day they try to hustle the money to put it together, they can’t do it because the choice now is whether I pay rent, pay the food, pay the doctor or redeem my car,” then Rep. Richard Tulisano, D-Rocky Hill, said during a 1998 debate in the House. “Somebody is going to get hurt.”

Yet instead of heeding Tulisano’s warning, the next year, following concerns about parking from property owners, lawmakers expanded the number of cars that could be sold within 15 days by raising the threshold from $500 to $1,500.

Timothy Vibert, president of the Towing & Recovery Professionals of Connecticut, defended the industry, noting that in many cases, vehicles are towed because owners have been skirting the law by driving without registration and insurance. So they don’t try to get their towed cars back because they can’t afford the towing fees or the cost of owning a car.

“I’m not stealing cars,” he said. “I am removing cars that are either illegally parked, whether they be law or condominium rules.”

Most of the complaints, he said, relate to what’s known in the industry as “trespass towing,” when companies tow from private lots rather than in response to police stops and accidents. Some companies have contracts with apartment and public housing complexes to search their lots for cars that don’t belong to residents or violate other rules like not being backed into their parking spaces.

One large trespass tow company in Connecticut that has faced scrutiny is MyHoopty, which is based in Watertown, a small town northwest of New Haven. Since 2022, Watertown police have responded to 87 complaints from people who had gone to MyHoopty. Most said they either couldn’t get their cars back or were being overcharged.

In an incident last January, the police threatened to, but did not, charge Festa when he wouldn’t release a car to its owner. Body-camera footage shows that the woman presented Festa with the title and bill of sale and asked him to let her have it towed out of his lot. Festa told the police he couldn’t release her car until she showed proof it was registered in her name.

The department did not follow through with its threat. Festa said MyHoopty “goes above and beyond” to help customers get their cars back. “We understand that having a vehicle towed without consent can leave a person feeling violated, and some may even perceive it as theft,” he wrote in an email. The company provides several resources, he said, “ensuring a smooth and efficient process for vehicle recovery.”

Festa, who wears his own body camera as an “extra measure of security,” has sued the police twice in state court in the past few years after the complaints prompted the department to take the rare action of removing MyHoopty from a list of tow companies they call after accidents and police stops. One lawsuit was dismissed. The other accuses Watertown officers of launching a “campaign of persecution” against Festa.

Watertown police Chief Joshua Bernegger declined to comment on MyHoopty, citing the pending litigation, and the town has asked the judge to dismiss the suit. But Bernegger said, generally, while “many standup towing companies” perform “crucial public services” in a dangerous environment, “there are, however, some tow companies that are operating on the fringe of a very ambiguous law.”

Festa has also faced criticism at the state level. In late 2022, Festa led an effort with other towers and the towing association to get the DMV to increase towing rates, arguing at a DMV hearing that expenses on everything from truck insurance to workers’ compensation had gone up. The DMV approved a modest increase, but the hearing also offered an opportunity for several people, including Anderson, to complain about MyHoopty refusing to give their cars back.

In response to those concerns, Lemar proposed a bill to require tow companies to give drivers 24 hours’ notice before a tow and to take multiple payment methods, including credit cards. The bill passed the committee, but facing fierce opposition from towers and property managers, it wasn’t called on the House floor. The 15-day rule was not part of that legislation.

Complaints to the DMV Go Nowhere

In some cases, Connecticut’s laws and the DMV’s processes make it harder for people to get their cars back once they’re towed. And for low-income people, the consequences of having their car sold can extend far beyond the cost of the car.

After her Dodge Neon was towed, Anderson pleaded with MyHoopty to release her car. She told them she had the bill of sale, title and proof of insurance and was going to the DMV in two days. But Anderson said Festa told her it wasn’t his problem; he wouldn’t release the car until it was registered.

This is where low-income people can get trapped. The law says that tow companies shall release vehicles to their owners once the fees have been paid and they present proof of registration. But there’s another law that seems to conflict with that: The DMV allows up to three months for drivers to register vehicles purchased out of state. And for private sales in Connecticut, the DMV says there is no deadline. So people can still run into problems even if they follow DMV rules.

Because Anderson bought her car in a private sale, she didn’t receive the temporary license plates usually provided by car dealers. She instead had to make an appointment at the DMV, which at the time took weeks to get, or go to an authorized dealer, which costs extra.

Plus, it was difficult for Anderson to get to MyHoopty’s lot, which was a 40-minute drive from her apartment. She said, one day, a person who answered the phone told her, “You’re wasting your time coming down here anyway, with all the fees and everything, you ain’t getting your car back, sweetheart.”

Anderson said her husband lost his job shortly after the car was towed because he couldn’t always get rides and it took more than an hour on multiple buses to get from Hamden to the restaurant he worked at in Milford.

To make matters worse, Anderson said, in the car were all of her husband’s chef tools, including knives he had been given in culinary school, which he estimates were worth more than $1,000.

After learning her rights from a tenants union, Anderson filed a complaint with the DMV in early 2023. In a three-page letter, she wrote, “It may be just a car to some, but for my family it was sanity, peace of mind stolen from us by MyHoopty.”

DMV records show MyHoopty sold her car to a Waterbury auto salvage facility for $800 within two months of towing it from her apartment complex. Anderson said her husband’s chef tools were never returned.

Festa declined to comment about specific cases, including Anderson’s. But he said MyHoopty employees “take the handling and return of personal property very seriously” by documenting every step of the towing process and “allowing customers to retrieve all personal belongings from their vehicles.”

The CT Mirror and ProPublica interviewed dozens of people across the state who had their cars sold after being towed. Like Anderson, they said their complaints to the DMV went nowhere.

This does not seem to be unusual. From 2021-23, the DMV conducted 17 investigations into complaints from drivers accusing MyHoopty of exorbitant bills and questionable reasons for towing their cars, according to records obtained by CT Mirror and ProPublica.

But most of the cases ended with no action being taken, records show. The law allows tow companies to sell people’s cars and doesn’t give owners a quick process to challenge a tow. The DMV has the power to issue fines of up to $1,000 or suspend or revoke companies’ licenses, and in a few cases, the department issued an infraction for overcharging on a towing bill — the legal equivalent of a speeding ticket.

Guerrera said the agency wants to make sure that everybody is held to the same standard. “If we receive complaints, we investigate and we adhere to the statutes that allow us to do things in regards to penalties or whatever it may be,” he said. “If it’s a formal complaint, we look into it, and if we find there’s something wrong, then we hold them to the letter of the law.”

Guerrera and other DMV officials said that tow companies could be charged with filing a false statement for lying on the forms, although they acknowledged they don’t remember a case when that happened.

Rachel Massaro filed a complaint against MyHoopty after the company towed her 2004 Honda Civic from her townhouse at Seramonte Estates in Hamden in 2021. But the DMV didn’t find any violations.

Massaro had just bought the car for $3,000 two days earlier. She brought it home that weekend and said she was told by the property manager that she couldn’t get a temporary pass until Monday.

“She told me, if I park, I had to park where the visitors” parked, Massaro said. “I did that and I was still towed.”

Massaro said MyHoopty told her it would cost more than $700 to get her car back. State regulations permit companies to charge $125, plus $5.65 per mile, for a tow, and daily storage fees range from $23 to $37.

“I told them I just bought the car, and I can’t spend another — he wanted $740,” Massaro said, “and he was like, ‘I don’t know what to tell you, honey.’”

MyHoopty submitted the form, seeking permission to sell the car, to the DMV 17 days after towing Massaro’s vehicle. On the form the company listed the car’s value as only $600.

The reason: There was no key to see how well the vehicle ran. It was the same explanation MyHoopty gave the DMV for the price of Anderson’s car.

Massaro said the car was worth a lot more and that MyHoopty knew she had the key. “I told them to let me go in and at least get my stuff out of there,” she said. “He told me that until I paid that fee, I couldn’t.”

Massaro never got back the shoes and clothes she had just bought at TJ Maxx. And the Honda was also sold to a salvage dealer in Waterbury for $800, according to DMV records.

Massaro cried when she saw a copy of the DMV form showing her car had been junked.

“It’s just an abuse of power that they hold over people they know can’t afford to pay the fees,” Massaro said.

Under the statute, when a towing company removes a vehicle from private property, it must inform the local police within two hours. The law is designed to ensure that police don’t mistake stolen cars for ones that were towed.

Hamden is a town of 60,000 people. But call logs from the police department show that from January 2022 to June 2024, more than half of the agency’s 1,082 tows were from Seramonte Estates, where MyHoopty had a contract to tow vehicles.

The law requires tow companies to send a certified letter to the car’s registered owner informing them it’s going to be sold. Several people, however, said they were never notified.

Abdul-Basit Ajia was studying business and playing basketball at Post University in Waterbury in April 2023 when someone broke into his Toyota Avalon in his apartment complex parking garage, shattering the window and damaging the steering wheel and gear shift. He reported the break-in to police and left it parked until he could afford to make the repairs necessary to take it home to Rhode Island.

Ajia said he didn’t know it had been sold until a reporter called him to ask what had happened. He said he never got any notification from the state or the towing company, Durable Radiator & Autobody, about the request to sell the car.

DMV records list Ajia’s mother’s address in Rhode Island, but he said no notice arrived there either.

Durable Radiator declined to comment and referred questions to the Waterbury towing association, which didn’t return calls and emails.

Ajia said the lack of transportation as he finished college made it more financially difficult to get started. He still hasn’t been able to purchase another car and rents one from his uncle.

“You need a car for almost anything,” he said. “So I was really out there just struggling, even to find a job.”

The Mirror is investigating towing practices in Connecticut, where companies can sell people’s cars after just 15 days. If you’ve been affected, here is how to share it: https://ctmirror.org/2025/01/05/connecticut-dmv-tow-companies-car-sales/

Shahrzad Rasekh, José Luis Martinez and Andrew Brown of The Connecticut Mirror and Asia Fields and Ryanne Mena of ProPublica contributed reporting. Dave Altimari, Ginny Monk are reporters for The Connecticut Mirror (https://ctmirror.org/ ). Copyright 2025 © The Connecticut Mirror, and Haru Coryne | ProPublica

Bonsignore, whose annual salary is about $146,000, will be on paid leave until then, according to the agreement with the state Office of Labor Relations.

By the time she retires, Bonsignore will have been on paid administrative leave for over 13 months.

Bonsignore was hired as a state employee in May 1986, according to state records. Pensions can be revoked only in cases where the employee has been convicted of a crime related to their employment.

The two-page agreement was signed by Bonsignore and attorneys for the Office of Labor Relations on Nov. 27. It forbids her from ever again working for the state of Connecticut.

The state also agrees that if contacted by a potential employer about Bonsignore that it will say only that she is retired and give her dates of employment.

She was put on administrative leave shortly after Ronnell Higgins became commissioner of DESPP and raised questions about Aimee Plourde, the agency’s chief financial officer.

Bonsignore, who had been assigned to work at DESPP, was involved in the May 2022 interview process that led to the hiring of Plourde as one of the highest-ranked civilian positions in the agency.

A three-member committee selected Plourde over one other finalist.

A 206-page internal affairs report into how Plourde got the job alleges that several state employees colluded to hire her. Plourde acknowledged to investigators she was friends with Bonsignore and that Bonsignore, days before Plourde’s interview, had sent Plourde the questions she was later asked in her interview.

Plourde stayed in the position until December 2023, when Higgins, the new DESPP Commissioner, ordered an internal affairs investigation into how she was hired.

Investigators sustained three charges against Bonsignore including “fraud or collusion in connection with any examination or appointment in the classified service.”

They also sustained four charges against Plourde, who resigned in June 2024 after the internal affairs investigation was completed. She was earning about $140,000.

The investigation also sustained two charges against Scott Devico, an executive assistant to then-DESPP Commissioner James Rovella and a member of the committee that hired Plourde, for “misleading investigators during his interview” and for “conduct unbecoming a DESPP employee” for texting Bonsignore updates during Plourde’s interview.

A charge that Devico failed to perform his duties in his position as a hiring manager was not sustained.

The report includes text messages and emails from government and private accounts that show Plourde did not have the relevant experience to perform the job, which state officials referred to as “the backbone” of the state agency.

One of those text exchanges occurred between Devico and Bonsignore during Plourde’s final interview on April 11, 2022.

Despite being tipped to the questions she’d be asked, Plourde was not doing well in the interview, prompting Devico to text Bonsignore in the middle of the interview:

“I don’t think I am going to be able to justify putting Aimee ahead of (the other candidate) … She doesn’t seem to have the Core CT, procurement, etc. experience”.

Bonsignore replied, “Oh no. If the team doesn’t feel confident in Aimee — can you tell them you want another date to discuss it — so that you don’t have to commit to recommending or not recommending anyone right now?”

Devico responded back, “It’s going to be hard because we have been discussing each one after the interview.”

Bonsignore texted back, “This is not good. Aimee would be much better than [redacted] at running the whole unit — she just doesn’t have the technical skills.”

Devico also noted that officials from the state’s Equal Employment Opportunities office were involved in the interview. The other finalist was a Black woman, according to the internal affairs report.

But even as a judge considers that request, records show federal investigators are continuing to probe other matters that could involve Diamantis, one of the highest-ranking officials in the Connecticut state government.

A federal grand jury subpoena that was issued to the state in late October ordered the state Department of Social Services to turn over Medicaid enrollment information for a Bristol optometrist.

Attorneys handling subpoenas for the state redacted the doctor’s name and address, but sources told The Connecticut Mirror that the person named in the subpoena is Helen Zervas, the owner of Family Eye Care.

The CT Mirror published a story in early 2024 that detailed how DSS cancelled a scheduled audit of Zervas’ practice after she admitted to overbilling the state’s Medicaid program and voluntarily repaid nearly $600,000 to the state.

The check that Zervas wrote to DSS became the focus of the ongoing grand jury investigation because it was hand-delivered to DSS’s headquarters by Diamantis and former state Democratic lawmaker Christopher Ziogas, Zervas’ fiance.

In a previous interview with CT Mirror, Diamantis acknowledged that he was friends with Zervas, but he said he did not intervene in the Medicaid audit or the settlement of Zervas’ Medicaid payments.

Even so, the new subpoena indicates federal authorities are not yet done investigating Zervas and her optometry practice. It’s unclear if Diamantis could also be a target in that investigation.

The current charges against Diamantis stem from a three-year federal investigation that focused primarily on school building projects, which Diamantis held immense influence over as the head of the state’s Office of School Construction Grants & Review.

Diamantis was arrested in early May and accused of extorting several school contractors and later accepting bribes from those companies.

In the 35-page indictment, Diamantis was charged with 22 separate counts, including lying to federal investigators. Diamantis has been free on a $500,000 bond since his arrest.

His trial is supposed to start as early as February, but his attorney, Norm Pattis, filed a motion Friday asking for a delay because he is still reviewing the discovery documents federal authorities turned over to him following Diamantis’ arrest.

“Discovery in this case is massive,” Pattis explained in his motion, adding that preparation for the trial was also disrupted by the recent death of Diamantis’ mother.

Citing emails and other messages, federal prosecutors have alleged that Diamantis used his position as the head of the state’s Office of School Construction Grants and Review to strong-arm contractors into paying him a cut of the school construction contracts he helped them to win.

Federal prosecutors have already secured several guilty pleas from some of the construction contractors that allegedly paid Diamantis for steering work to their companies.

One of those contractors is Antonietta Roy, the owner of Construction Advocacy Professionals, who was charged with conspiracy to commit bribery.

The other two were Salvatore “Sal” Monarca and John Duffy, the president and vice president of Acranom Masonry, who were both charged with conspiracy to commit extortion.

All three pleaded guilty before Diamantis was indicted, but their cases were not unsealed until after Diamantis was arrested at his Farmington home on May 16.

Mark Pazniokas is a reporter for The Connecticut Mirror (ctmirror.org). Copyright 2024 © The Connecticut Mirror.

That’s because four days before that interview, Marybeth Bonsignore, the human resources officer who was in charge of the hiring process, had emailed the questions to Plourde, according to an internal affairs report released Wednesday by state police attorneys.

Plourde got the job a month later, making her one of the highest-ranked civilians in the department, which oversees the Connecticut State Police and Homeland Security. She stayed in the position until December 2023, when Ronnell Higgins, the new DESPP Commissioner, ordered an internal affairs investigation into how she was hired.

The 206-page internal affairs reportreleased Wednesday concludes that several state employees colluded to hire Plourde — who, according to her own statement to investigators, was friends with Bonsignore — as the DESPP chief financial officer. In that role, she oversaw the budget and spending for the agency.

Investigators sustained three charges against Bonsignore, including “fraud or collusion in connection with any examination or appointment in the classified service.” Bonsignore remains a state employee on paid administrative leave, earning $146,000 a year.

Department of Administrative Services spokesman Leigh Appleby said Wednesday that an agreement has been reached with Bonsignore.

“The review and decision-making process concluded on November 27, 2024, with a negotiated stipulated agreement stating that the employee will remain on paid administrative leave until her retirement on February 1, 2025,” Appleby said.

Bonsignore’s attorney, Bruce Newman, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

They also sustained four charges against Plourde, who resigned in June 2024 after the internal affairs investigation was completed. Her attorney, Henry Murray, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. 

The investigation also sustained two charges against Scott Devico, an executive assistant to then-DESPP Commissioner James Rovella and a member of the committee that hired Plourde, for “misleading investigators during his interview” and for “conduct unbecoming a DESPP employee” for texting Bonsignore updates during Plourde’s interview.

A charge that Devico failed to perform his duties in his position as a hiring manager was not sustained.

Devico said Wednesday he was unaware of the connection between Plourde and Bonsignore.

“I didn’t know that she (Plourde) had the questions when she was being interviewed for the position, and I didn’t find out until nearly two years later,” Devico said.

The report includes text messages and emails from government and private accounts that show Plourde did not have the relevant experience to perform the job, which state officials referred to as “the backbone” of the state agency.

One of those text exchanges occurred between Devico and Bonsignore during Plourde’s final interview on April 11, 2022.

Despite being tipped to the questions she’d be asked, Plourde was not doing well in the interview, prompting Devico to text Bonsignore in the middle of the interview:

“I don’t think I am going to be able to justify putting Aimee ahead of (the other candidate) … She doesn’t seem to have the Core CT, procurement, etc. experience”.

Bonsignore replied, “Oh no. If the team doesn’t feel confident in Aimee — can you tell them you want another date to discuss it — so that you don’t have to commit to recommending or not recommending anyone right now?”

Devico responded back, “It’s going to be hard because we have been discussing each one after the interview.”

Devico also noted that officials from the state’s Equal Employment Opportunities office were involved in the interview. The other finalist was a Black woman, according to the internal affairs report.

Bonsignore texted back, “This is not good. Aimee would be much better than [redacted] at running the whole unit — she just doesn’t have the technical skills.”

Threats and confessions

Plourde was hired in May 2022 as the CFO. Her tenure came to an abrupt end shortly after Plourde met for the first time in December 2023 with newly named Commissioner Higgins to go over the agency’s budget.

Higgins told investigators he was concerned when Plourde couldn’t answer basic questions about the budget in that meeting.

The next night, Plourde approached Bonsignore at the retirement party for outgoing Commissioner Rovella and threatened her, according to DAS employees interviewed by state police as part of the internal investigation.

Erica D’Angelo, Bonsignore’s boss, told investigators that Bonsignore had told her that Plourde had approached her and asked for her help, saying, “If you don’t, then I am going to tell people what you did to help me get hired.”

When D’Angelo told DAS administrators about that conversation, they notified Higgins, who placed Plourde on administrative leave on Dec. 7, 2023 and ordered the internal affairs investigation.

Plourde was a 17-year state employee, earning about $140,000 annually, when she was placed on leave. She had been a tax unit manager at the Department of Revenue Services, earning about $116,000, when she got the DESPP job in May 2022.

Bonsignore, a 33-year state employee, was placed on paid administrative leave that day, and her case is being handled by the Office of Labor Relations.

Decico eventually left state service when Higgins sent him a letter last June declining to reappoint him.

When interviewed by state police detectives, Bonsignore claimed that she sent Plourde the “live” questions by mistake and had planned to just send her sample questions to help her prepare for her interview.

According to the report, detectives asked Bonsignore if she thought the hiring process was conducted fairly, to which she responded, “Well it certainly doesn’t appear that way, but that was not my intent and I am very remorseful.”

She added, “It was not my intent to set this job up for Aimee to get this job. I had no personal stake in this.”

Bonsignore downplayed her relationship with Plourde, saying that they “only knew each other professionally” and were not friends.

But that’s not what Plourde told detectives when she was interviewed. She said she attended Bonsignore’s 50th birthday party and that Bonsignore attended her son’s wedding.

Detectives asked Plourde what she did when she realized Bonsignore had sent her the questions for her interview four days in advance.

Plourde responded that she opened the attachment containing the interview questions and thought, “Oh my gosh they are interview questions.”

Plourde said she only read the first three questions before closing the attachment.

“Ms. Plourde stated she was in shock when it happened,” the report says.

Investigators then showed Plourde an email she sent her husband, asking him to print all of the questions the day after she received them from Bonsignore. She told detectives that she “only read the first few and put the printed questions into a drawer.”

She denied using the questions during her virtual interview with the three-member committee on April 11, 2022.

Athena officials filed a “letter of intent” Friday with the state Department of Social Services that said Sheriden Woods in Bristol would be closing. The day before, they sent a letter to DSS indicating that Countryside Manor, which is also in Bristol, would be closing.

The closures would leave Athena with six nursing homes in Connecticut, a rapid downfall for a company that not even two years ago was the largest chain in the state with 22 facilities.

In a letter to employees at Countryside delivered Friday morning, Athena’s CEO Larry Santilli blamed the closing on a variety of factors.

“We understand this news is not easy to hear. Our first priority is supporting our residents in this transition,” Santilli wrote. “A combination of factors, including challenges facing skilled long term care nursing facilities like staffing, rising operating costs and other financial considerations along with the need for significant and costly updates to our building have left us no alternative but to seek closure of this facility.”

Both facilities are near capacity — Countryside currently has 85 residents and is licensed for 90 beds, while Sheriden Woods has 133 residents and is licensed for 146 beds, according to Athena spokeswoman Savannah Ragali.

Athena issued a statement Friday acknowledging the impact on residents, their families and staff.

“We recognize that this news is disappointing to our residents and their families, and we will be working closely with state agencies including the Department of Social Services, Public Health, and the local ombudsman’s office to ensure appropriate transfers to other suitable locations within the surrounding communities,” the statement said.

The six facilities Athena still operates in Connecticut are: Bayview Health Care in Waterford, Litchfield Woods Health Care Center in Torrington, MeadowBrook of Granby, Northbridge Health Care Center in Bridgeport, Valerie Manor in Torrington and Wadsworth Glen in Middletown.

“We are currently evaluating options to support the continued operations of the six Athena-managed nursing homes in Connecticut,” the Athena statement said.

Matthew Barrett, the president and chief executive officer for the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities and Connecticut Center for Assisted Living, said Friday he is not aware of any public information stating the reasons why Athena is petitioning to close the facilities.

“If the state approves these petitions to close, there is simply no way to gloss over this news. Abruptly closing a nursing home effectively means evicting hundreds of residents from their homes,” Barrett said. “It means separating them from dedicated caregivers the residents have sometimes known for years, and it displaces hundreds more staff who have put their hearts into this work for decades. There is real trauma for both the residents and the staff.”

Athena’s letters of intent start a process that could take more than six months.

There will be a period of 10 days after which DSS will contact Athena and schedule public hearings at each facility within 30 days to allow residents and staff to have their say. DSS then has 180 days from those public hearings to decide whether to allow Athena to close the facilities.

“It’s a long process and all along the way the residents will have the opportunity to have their voices heard,” DSS spokesman Jalmar De Dios said.

In the past year Athena has sold 10 of its facilities to National Health Care Associates, a longtime nursing home provider based in New York. The most recent sales in early November were for more than $30 million, records show.

The Connecticut Mirror has chronicled the growing financial problems at Athena over the past two years and legislators’ concerns about how the fiscal troubles are impacting residents’ care.

Several employees have contacted the CT Mirror with stories of being unable to pay medical bills and having medical procedures canceled because Athena was behind in paying employee health care claims.

In a memo to more than 2,500 employees last winter, Santilli acknowledged the problem.

“Athena has not been able to promptly meet all the funding requirements of the employee health plan. As a result, we are approximately 6 months behind in paying submitted health claims. In our continuing efforts to address shortfalls with funding the health plan, we have hired outside personnel to assist us to properly administer the health plan moving forward.”

Athena also owed towns and cities across the state more than $750,000 in back taxes and has been sued by numerous vendors for non-payments.

The two closures are the latest Athena facilities to close.

In September, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services notified that because Abbott Terrace in Waterbury had a “failure to meet Medicare’s basic health and safety requirements,” funding would be stopped as of Sept. 10 for any new patients and within 30 days for all patients.

The unprecedented step by federal officials in effect closed Abbott Terrace, a 205-bed facility because most of its residents are Medicaid or Medicare recipients and not private payers.

Dave Altimari is a reporter for The Connecticut Mirror (https://ctmirror.org/ ). Copyright 2024 © The Connecticut Mirror.

“The Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection has determined that the numbers shared at an Oct. 9 press conference regarding the number of traffic stops conducted by the Connecticut State Police for 2023 did not include all traffic stops,” DESPP spokesman Richard Green said in a press release issued last week.

State police blamed the error on “a change in software used for reporting that was identified and remediated.”

The press release stated the 2023 number of 26,030 cited at the Oct. 9 press conference was incorrect. Here are the updated stop numbers:

Total number of traffic stops for the year 2023: 95,781.

Total number of traffic stops thus far in 2024: 77,133.

The Connecticut Mirror covered the press conference at the state Department of Transportation on Oct. 9. Both Lamont and U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy also attended the event.

Higgins spoke about how increasing traffic enforcement and cutting down speeding on state roads were priorities for him.

“So it’s really been a full court press, a focused approach, utilizing data and holding people accountable,” Higgins said Wednesday. “They’re doing it, and I’m proud of them for doing it, and we want to keep it up.”

Overall, traffic stops reported by all police agencies in Connecticut fell from 513,000 in 2019 to 242,000 in 2020, according to numbers analyzed by CTData.org. They have increased each year since to 313,000 in 2022, still significantly below the pre-pandemic numbers.

Traffic fatalities reached a 40-year high of 366 in 2022 and fell to 310 in 2023. As of Oct. 2, the state had 245 fatalities, an average of 27 every month. If that pace continues, the state will end the year with about 327 deaths.

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services notified state officials as well as Athena Tuesday evening that because of the “facility’s failure to meet Medicare’s basic health and safety requirements,” funding will be stopped as of Sept. 10 for any new patients and within 30 days for all patients.

The unprecedented step by federal officials in effect will close the 205-bed facility because most of its residents are Medicaid or Medicare recipients and not private payers. State officials said late Tuesday night they will being working with the Long Term Care Ombudsman’s office to relocate residents.

“Involuntary termination of a provider agreement is generally a last resort after all other attempts to remedy the deficiencies at a facility have been exhausted,” the CMS letter states.

“In this instance, CMS has found that Abbott Terrace Health Center is out of compliance with CMS’s health and safety requirements. While we understand that relocation of residents and patients can be challenging for all parties involved, CMS prioritizes patient safety and care quality.”

Athena officials did not immediately return requests for comment.

Department of Public Health Commissioner Manisha Juthani and Department of Social Services Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves issued a joint statement Tuesday evening.

“Today’s relatively unprecedented decision by CMS was not taken lightly and was necessitated by the repeated failures of Abbott Terrace’s owner and management team to prioritize the health and safety of its residents,” the commissioners said.

The commissioners said that the announcement does not mean that Abbott’s residents have lost their coverage. Residents will still be covered when they move to a facility that participates in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

“Our focus now turns to ensuring that Abbott Terrace’s owner and management use the next 30 days to assist residents with finding and transitioning to new living arrangements while also adhering to the regulations governing residents’ health, safety, and well-being at the facility,” they said.

“DPH will have monitors at Abbott Terrace daily until the last resident has left the facility. Our agencies will also work with the Long Term Care Ombudsman to help ensure residents understand their rights, explore available living arrangement options, and have as smooth a transition as possible to their next home.”

Mairead Painter, the state’s long-term care ombudsman, said the termination raises “significant issues” about continuity of care, potential displacement of residents and the well-being of people who live at the facility.

“The Office of the State Ombudsman is deeply concerned about the recent announcement that Abbott Terrace, a skilled nursing facility in Waterbury, had their Medicare and Medicaid provider agreement terminated. This leaves many residents and their families vulnerable as they face uncertainty and potential distress,” Painter said Tuesday.

“State oversight agencies work to ensure that the skilled nursing facilities in Connecticut provide good quality care. However, my office and state oversight agencies can only do so much,” she said. “It is the responsibility of the facility, its owners, and management companies [to] maintain financial stability and deliver quality care. If they are not stable or choose to put profits over the residents in the facility, then the outcome and care concerns can be significant.”

Painter said while she waits to hear what’s next for the facility, her office is helping ensure residents’ rights are upheld and is providing emotional support to patients.

“We are here to listen to their concerns, offer guidance and connect them with resources that can help them through this difficult period,” she said.

Abbott Terrace is Athena’s largest remaining facility. It has 205 beds, and 192 were occupied as of the end of August, according to DSS records.

DPH officials made several visits to Abbott Terrace over the first six months of this year. The inspections showed staff shortages, particularly nurses, large holes in the tile floors and at least one incident where an employee told a resident with incontinence problems “they could smell them in the hallway.”

The Connecticut Mirror has chronicled the growing financial problems at Athena over the past 18 months and legislators’ concerns about how the fiscal troubles are impacting residents’ care.

Several employees have contacted The CT Mirror with stories of being unable to pay medical bills and having medical procedures canceled because Athena owed nearly $3 million in employee health care claims.

They also owe back taxes to several municipalities and closed two nursing homes late last year: the Crestfield Rehabilitation Center in Manchester and Middlesex Health Care Center in Middletown.

Athena also recently sold five facilities — Newtown Rehabilitation & Health Care Center, Beacon Brook Health Center in Naugatuck, Montowese Health & Rehabilitation Center in North Haven, Sharon Health Center and Evergreen Health Care Center in Stafford Springs — to National Health Care earlier this year.

Athena still owns 14 long-term care facilities including Abbott Terrace. State officials have been discussing whether there will be a need to place other facilities in receivership.

Dave Altimari and Jenna Carlesso are reporters for The Connecticut Mirror (https://ctmirror.org/ ). Copyright 2024 © The Connecticut Mirror.