Florida Pays $800K To Fix Governor’s Mansion

TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/AP) — Did you know your hard-earned tax dollars are paying for upgrades at Gov. Rick Scott’s Tallahassee mansion? Gov. Scott has repeatedly pledged to slash government spending since his 2010 election yet more than $800,000 has been spent for substantial improvements to the Greek Revival mansion where he and his wife live.

Taxpayers have footed the bill for things like the cleaning of oriental rugs and refinishing the oak flooring at “the People’s House,” a sprawling edifice at 700 North Adams Street that serves as private residence as well as official entertainment venue for the state’s chief executive. Some money, though, has come from lobbyists and corporate donors with business before Scott and the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Nearly $3 million was spent during Jeb Bush’s eight years in office, but that included some expensive, post-9/11 security upgrades. And what has been spent under Scott far exceeds the money spent while Charlie Crist was in office.
Most of the money spent on the mansion— nearly $600,000 — has come from taxpayers and goes toward upkeep of the grounds and what is called the “public side” of the mansion, which includes the garden and rooms where public receptions are held.
But more than $200,000 spent on both public rooms and on the personal quarters used by the Scott family came from a handful of the state’s most powerful companies. Records from the Governor’s Mansion Foundation show that U.S. Sugar, Florida Crystals and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida each donated $100,000.

On top of that came $20,000 gifts from fundraiser and lobbyist Brian Ballard; Scott’s political adviser, Tony Fabrizio; and George Zoley, the CEO of private prison company The GEO Group, which runs two Florida penitentiaries.
House Democratic Leader Perry Thurston, D-Fort Lauderdale, questioned the state spending money on the mansion while it has been pushing cutbacks elsewhere.
“Maybe the first place in government cutbacks is where you are staying at,” said Thurston.
Thurston also said he was surprised to hear about private donations for the mansion and said he doubted anyone in the public was aware of it.
“There’s a real concern there,” said Thurston. “What are they expecting to receive from their contributions?”
Scott, a multi-millionaire who owns a mansion in southwest Florida, did not put any of his own money to the renovation effort, although foundation records show that he and his wife donated furniture, lamps and exercise equipment valued at more than $93,000.

I want your tax dollars for myself

Scott spokeswoman Melissa Sellers would not answer questions about whether accepting private money might risk posing a conflict of interest. Her answer in an email was that “mansion foundation members raise money.”
Located 10 blocks north of the Capitol building, the governor’s mansion is hidden from view by aging commercial properties that sit along a Tallahassee main street. Large iron gates block the street in front of the mansion, keeping visitors away. Ballard said he was glad to make his 2011 donation, which came at a time when there were discussions of using the private money to help purchase the commercial property. The idea was to create a kind of “mansion park” that might qualify as a national historical landmark.
“I believe in Tallahassee and I live here,” Ballard said. “I think we should more things to make Tallahassee a special place. Rick Scott certainly doesn’t need money from me. If they asked again, I would do it again. And I would do it if it were for Gov. (Bob) Graham, Gov. (Lawton) Chiles or Gov. Crist.”
The long list of renovations to the governor’s mansion includes a $2,000 mirror for first lady Ann Scott’s bathroom and $38,000 in new rugs. Private money paid for those items. The mansion also boasts new wallpaper, pillows, furniture, drapes, paint, window repairs, new screens for the swimming pool and an upgraded kitchen.

First lady Ann Scott

The amount of public money spent on the mansion the last three years far exceeds what was spent between 2007 and 2011, when Crist was governor. State records show slightly more than $27,000 was spent during Crist’s term, although he spent most weekends outside Tallahassee.
Nearly $3 million was spent between 1999 and 2007 when Bush was governor, but that includes nearly $1 million to acquire property near the mansion and to close the street due to security concerns.
Ben Wolf, a spokesman for the Department of Management Services, said improvements paid for by taxpayers were for historical preservation, to improve health and safety and for routine maintenance of the 60-year-old building. For example, Wolf said, the walls and ceilings hadn’t been painted in more than 15 years.
Wolf said that the repairs were undertaken after an assessment by DMS, which manages real estate owned by the state among other functions. The improvements were not done at anyone’s request, Wolf said.
Melissa Sellers, a spokeswoman for Scott, also said that neither the governor nor the first lady requested any renovations.

But minutes from a May 2011 meeting of the Governor’s Mansion Commission— the state panel that assures the home maintains its original structure and character — show that first lady Ann Scott voiced concern about the home’s condition to state officials.
“It’s important to me to maintain its beauty and showcase its history, making the mansion a welcome destination for all guests,” said the first lady, who had run her own interior design business before her husband was elected and has pushed to make the mansion more available to public events.
Carol Beck, mansion manager and curator, was quoted as telling the group that top DMS officials “have been exceptionally proactive in addressing concerns of the first lady and myself as it relates to the current condition of the interior and exterior of the mansion proper, as well as the grounds.”
Sellers said that Ann Scott has been traveling a lot lately to spend time with her grandchildren and unavailable for questions about the mansion.
Meanwhile, Scott — who just announced he would seek to cut another $100 million in “government waste” next year — is known to be a strong supporter of the costly renovation to The Grove Plantation, the 180-year-old historic home of the late Gov. LeRoy Collins. It sits on a 10-acre site adjoining the governor’s mansion and could be opened to the public as soon as next year.
(TM and © Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/10/28/florida-pays-800k-to-fix-governors-mansion/

Child-Protection Worker Accused Of Falsifying Reports

October 10, 2013|By Erika Pesantes, Sun Sentinel, By Erika Pesantes, Sun Sentinel

A Broward sheriff’s employee entrusted to help shield kids from harm didn’t even bother to meet five children she needed to watch over, possibly compromising their safety, authorities say.

Sandra Marti

Sheriff’s child investigative specialist Sandra Marti has been arrested, accused of falsifying reports that stated she had met with the children, according to a sheriff’s report. Instead, Marti simply arranged for parents to send her cellphone photos of the children, the report said.

Marti was jailed Wednesday on multiple counts of falsifying reports, records show.
“The falsification of official records, and the potential risks that any kind of falsification could pose for children, will not be tolerated,” said Dennis Miles, the regional managing director for the state’s Department of Children and Families’ Southeast Region.
Marti submitted the falsified records involving the five children between Dec. 1, 2011, and June 30 this year, the Sheriff’s Office said. Detectives found that those children are doing well, sheriff’s spokeswoman Keyla Concepcion said.
“We have gone back and made sure that all of those kids were safe, and the original allegations had been addressed,” she said.
An investigation into Marti’s actions began in June when a child’s mother phoned the Broward Sheriff’s Office. The mother said she planned to send Marti a photo of her son, but couldn’t because she had lost Marti’s phone number, an arrest report said.
That was a red flag for Marti’s supervisor, Concepcion said.
Detectives from the Broward Sheriff’s Public Corruption Unit reached out to several parents who each similarly detailed Marti’s instructions to send her photos of their children. They all said their sons and daughters did not meet with her on instances when she indicated they had, according to an arrest report.
Marti, a civilian employee, is currently suspended without pay, Concepcion said. Marti, 57, of Coral Springs, has been employed with the Sheriff’s Office for nine years.
She previously worked in pre-trial services and community control supervision of offenders, and later began working as a child investigative specialist.
Detectives have reviewed all of Marti’s cases since July 2010 — when she began working in the Child Protective Investigations Section — and only found five cases “in which she acted inappropriately,” Concepcion said.
Marti, who was freed from jail on a $5,000 bond, could not be reached for comment Thursday despite several attempts to contact her via a relative.
As part of their role, child protective investigators take a look at allegations of abuse, neglect or abandonment that come into the DCF hotline. Those cases range from neglecting to offer a child medical attention, to leaving minors who cannot care for themselves home alone, to sexual abuse, DCF spokeswoman Paige Patterson-Hughes said.
However, it was not known Thursday what circumstances led Marti to each of the cases for which she allegedly falsified reports.
“It’s important for there to be the appropriate contact with the potential victim and other people involved,” Patterson-Hughes said. “Not following through clearly is a problem.”
In the case that helped start the investigation, Marti filed a report indicating she met a child on June 13 this year, authorities said. But in a sworn statement, the boy’s mother said Marti did not meet her son and instead asked the mother for a cellphone photo.
According to the arrest report, investigators found that Marti filed a report in January 2012 stating that she had met with another child. But that boy’s mother also gave a sworn statement that said Marti didn’t see her son.
The scenario repeated itself in December 2012, when Marti said in a report she visited a 7-year-old girl at Croissant Park Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale, an arrest report said. But the school’s assistant vice principal said she had no record of an investigator visiting the child at the time, the report said.
Marti allegedly also asked that girl’s mother to send a cellphone snapshot of her other child, a 2-year-old girl. The mother, in a sworn statement, said she did as instructed.
In April 2013, Marti gave a 16-year-old boy’s mother her business card and asked that his photo be emailed to her, the report said. The boy told investigators that he never met Marti, but did take a photo of himself on his cellphone and emailed it to Marti.
Patterson-Hughes said meeting people is essential: It offers investigators clues to anything else that should be taken into account during their investigation.
“Clearly, when you’re talking to a person, you’re oftentimes taking in more than the words. You’re looking at other aspects, the behavior, the demeanor and the circumstances that brought you to the person in the first place,” Patterson-Hughes said.
Marti also is accused of falsifying a report that said she had met with a parent, authorities said.
In May this year, Marti allegedly filed a report stating she had met with the father of a child who had an open case, authorities said. The father told detectives that he had a telephone conversation with a child protective investigator, but did not meet the investigator in person, the arrest report said.
Miles called the allegations against Marti a “serious matter” and commended the Sheriff’s Office for investigating. In an emailed statement Thursday, he said that DCF “will work with [sheriff's] investigators to ensure the integrity of other cases which involved this investigator.”
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-10-10/news/fl-child-protection-arrest-bso-20131010_1_broward-sheriff-five-children-falsifying-reports

Suspended Homestead Mayor Arrested On Election Law Violations

HOMESTEAD (CBSMiami) – Just a few months after he was arrested and charged with two felony charges of unlawful compensation or reward for official behavior; suspended Homestead Mayor Steve Bateman was arrested again Friday on seven counts of election law violations.

Homestead Mayor Steve Bateman

According to CBS4 news partner the Miami Herald, Bateman surrendered and was released on his own recognizance. The new charges are separate from the original charges, but are still part of the overall investigation of Bateman, the Herald reported.
The specific charges relate to unlawfully failing to dispose of campaign funds under Florida law.
Bateman’s first arrest was connected to a secret consulting gig with Community Health of South Florida and construction projects, first reported by CBS4 News.
He allegedly used his elected position to get the consulting job with CHI.
Bateman had been mayor of Homestead since 2009, but lost his bid for re-election last month.

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/11/01/suspended-homestead-mayor-arrested-on-election-law-violations/

Governor Phony Rick Scott?

 

Fourteen months from the next election, Gov. Rick Scott’s sales pitch is clear. He portrays himself as the education governor, the defender of the environment and the advocate for open records. He’s the jobs governor, and he has empathy for Floridians without health coverage. Don’t be fooled by the packaging. It’s a facade that hides reality, and Florida deserves better.

Education
Scott organized a three-day summit last week to tackle controversies over the coming Common Core State Standards and the discredited school accountability system now in place. He promotes the $1 billion in new money public schools received this year and his effort to give teachers raises.
The reality is Scott failed to show up at his own summit to listen to the concerns of school superintendents and others. Instead he ate dinner privately with former Gov. Jeb Bush, whose passion for education is unquestioned even if some of his views are controversial.
This year’s per student funding is the highest of Scott’s three years as governor. But it is still lower than each of the five previous years under his predecessors, Charlie Crist and Bush. Scott also signed into law the legislation that siphons off school construction money to privately run charter schools. And the governor’s last two hand-picked education commissioners have shown more interest in advocating for charter schools and expanding voucher programs than in creating successful public schools.
Now there is another interim education commissioner, and the revolving door in Tallahassee leaves local school districts without clear direction from the state. Will Scott fold on Common Core and the student assessments needed to make them work?
Environment
The governor staged another media show last week to promote a worthy project to improve water flow into Everglades National Park. That is a drop in the bucket compared to the damage he has done to the environment.
The governor decimated growth management and eliminated the agency that enforced it. He fought the federal government over clean-water standards, neutered the water management districts by slashing their tax base and manipulated the regulatory process to put politics above science. His money for Florida’s springs is hardly meaningful. The deal he cut with the federal government on restoring the Everglades put the deadline off again. And to raise money to buy sensitive lands, the state’s solution is to sell land it already owns.
Scott is still looking at toll roads to nowhere across the middle of Florida. The state still has no cohesive energy policy. And the governor’s environmental agency is more focused on quickly approving the requests of developers than on protecting wetlands. A news conference on one worthy project cannot mask years of bad policy.
Jobs
Scott inaccurately claims he is more than halfway toward meeting his pledge of creating 700,000 jobs, and he keeps cranking out the news releases. Last week: 100 jobs at Boeing in Miami; 105 new air cargo jobs in Orlando; 200 jobs at technology company Citrix in Fort Lauderdale. The week before that: 40 jobs at the moving and storage company PODS in Clearwater.
Many of the jobs Scott counts won’t be created for years, if ever, and the bigger picture is darker. The state’s unemployment rate has been stuck at 7.1 percent for three months, better than the national average of 7.4 percent. A report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the labor force expanded in the Tampa Bay area, Jacksonville and Orlando in the past year but in other areas — South Florida, the Panhandle, Bradenton, Sarasota and Lakeland — the labor force contracted. And the jobless rate in Pasco and Hernando counties is still 8 percent or higher.
Scott’s heavy-handed attempt to lure companies from other states is a public relations nightmare, and it isn’t working. While Florida now has roughly as many jobs as before the recession, people earn less and there are more part-time jobs. Jobs in the low-paying leisure and hospitality sectors are up. Better paying jobs in construction, manufacturing and professional/business services are still down.
The bottom line: The job situation is not nearly as rosy as Scott projects.
Health care
After Florida failed to persuade the courts to block health care reform, Scott called for the state to accept billions in federal dollars and expand Medicaid to 1 million uninsured residents. “I cannot, in good conscience, deny Floridians the needed access to health care,” he declared in February.
Then he stopped listening to his conscience. Scott sat by as House Speaker Will Weatherford blocked expansion, and he has dropped the issue. What the governor has done is reject millions in federal dollars to implement health care reform and left the creation of an insurance exchange to the federal government. He also foolishly signed into law a ban on state regulation of health insurance rates for two years.
New U.S. Census figures show nearly 1 in 4 Floridians lack health insurance, the second highest rate in the nation. Hospitals in Orlando, Vero Beach and elsewhere are laying off workers and reducing pay in part because the new Medicaid dollars aren’t coming.
Scott isn’t expanding access to health care. He is working against it. He is making it harder for hospitals to make ends meet, harder for the uninsured to get coverage and harder for businesses to comply with the federal law.
Openness
Scott promised an unprecedented effort toward government transparency: Regular releases on the Internet of nearly all emails received or written by the governor and his top staff. The goal was to eventually extend the service, known as Project Sunburst, to Scott’s 11 agencies as well.
Sunburst has been a bust. Efforts to meet a seven-day window in posting emails to the site routinely goes unmet and are incomplete. Agencies were never added to the project and Scott and his aides avoid creating public records when they can. Scott’s chief of staff isn’t shy about reminding subordinates that anything they send to him by email is a public record. Contrast that with the first e-governor, Jeb Bush, who was such a believer in efficient communication his state portrait includes his Blackberry in the background.
It’s not just Sunburst. The governor also helped kill one of the most promising efforts for open government. He refused to take ownership of a software project, Transparency 2.0, that would have allowed the public to easily track how state government allocates and spends taxpayer money. The project died from neglect.
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-governor-phony/2139239

Ex-chief Of DeSoto Jail Pleads Guilty

By Lee Williams

Published: Monday, October 28, 2013 at 5:34 p.m.

Last Modified: Monday, October 28, 2013 at 5:34 p.m.

DESOTO COUNTY – Ray Kugler, the former sheriff’s captain in charge of the DeSoto County jail, has agreed to plead guilty to lying to FBI agents — a federal felony.

Ray Kugler

According to court documents, an FBI special agent and an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement interviewed Kugler June 24 as part of the agencies’ investigation into allegations of abuse and civil rights violations in the jail made by Jody Holland, a former inmate.
Holland, 43, says DeSoto deputies beat him on three occasions, slamming his head into a concrete wall, punching him in the face and chest and choking him nearly unconscious.
Sheriff’s officials — including Kugler — initially denied that any staff member used force on Holland, but the Sheriff’s Office started an investigation after being contacted by the Herald-Tribune.
The FBI, FDLE and Sheriff’s Office internal affairs detectives started several investigations. Kugler retired while being investigated. Three other jail staffers were fired. One other was disciplined.
The plea
According to the federal plea agreement, the agents asked Kugler about a request to transport Holland to a local hospital — a request Holland and others say Kugler denied.
“The questions asked, and the responses provided by Mr. Kugler, were material to the investigation of whether DeSoto County jail staff, including Mr. Kugler, were willfully and deliberately indifferent to the serious medical needs of inmate J.H. (Holland),” the plea agreement states.
Kugler denied knowledge of the conversations during which he allegedly refused medical care — assertions that investigators claimed “were false.”
“In fact, Mr. Kugler was aware of the request to transport inmate (Holland) to (DeSoto Memorial Hospital) on May 25 2013 and willfully and deliberately denied such knowledge to S/A Roncinske and Agent Walsh,” the plea agreement states.
Kugler’s lawyer, Fort Myers defense attorney Joseph Viacava, said, “Because of his lack of criminal history, the controversy over the charge itself and his numerous years of public service, it is very unlikely he will serve any jail time, which of course is up to the court.”
“The charge is disputed, but the jury could conclude he did mislead, which is unintentional,” Viacava said. “They thought he was the boss in charge of all this, because he had the original dispute with the guy over some remarks, but they found out he had nothing to do with it.”
Viacava would not allow Kugler to be interviewed by the Herald-Tribune while the sentence is pending.

Moving forward
Holland said he expects more indictments in the case, which has been before a grand jury.
“I want the people who smashed my head — who tried to kill me,” he said. “I am glad it is moving forward.”
Holland said he is still suffering the effects of a mild concussion and from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the beatings.
Deputies arrested Holland on April 21 for allegedly battering his girlfriend, Christine Routson, a nurse who worked at the jail until she resigned while under investigation.
Holland has denied the charges.
He spent the night in jail after that April arrest and was later released subject to a domestic violence injunction that ordered him to stay away from Routson.
She has alleged that Holland violated this court order on at least three occasions.
Holland was arrested May 25 on charges of violating the injunction and taken to the DeSoto jail, where he claims the more serious assaults began.

DeSoto jail

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20131028/ARTICLE/131029637/2055/NEWS?p=2&tc=pg

Governor Rick Scott Is Still Hiding Money

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Guest Blogger •

This year the Florida Legislature passed a new blind trust law. The ink had not dried on Gov. Rick Scott’s signature before he decided to test the new law. Scott wanted to make sure the money he had made documented on his questionable personal portfolio was in line with the new law, a law that he and his Republican cronies helped write.

Rick Scott made sure he “stacked the deck” beforehand. According to the Tampa Bay Times, five of (the Ethics Commission) nine members (were) appointed by the governor. “The governor has hit all the requirements of the statute,” said the panel’s general counsel Christopher Anderson, who added that Scott was “ahead of the game” in 2011 and complies with the new law.

Governor Rick Scott

Scott asked for the commission’s opinion to ensure the blind trust complies with a new law. “The governor has hit all the requirements of the statute,” said Anderson.
The voting public conveniently forgets what Scott did. The Sun Sentinel reports that Scott perpetrated fraud that “ was and still is the biggest Medicare fraud case in U.S. history and ended with the hospital giant Columbia/HCA paying a record $1.7 billion in fines, penalties and damages.” Scott was co-founder and CEO of Columbia/HCA in the 1990s, when the FBI launched a massive, multi-state investigation that led to the company pleading guilty to criminal charges of overbilling the government.
If fines and penalties of $1.7 Billion are any indication that big money was made then one must think there was a lot of it. Medicare insurance fraud is big money and Rick Scott made a bunch of it. The Tallahassee Democrat indicated that the amount of money that may have been made, “When Scott first sought office, he reported a net worth of $218 million, while the filing he turned in earlier this summer showed that his net worth was nearly $84 million as of the end of 2012.”
The fact that Scott refuses to take any money for being governor, 12-cents a year, allows him to do, basically, whatever he wants when filling out financial disclosure forms. It seems doubtful the state of Florida’s Republican Legislature really cares what he makes. The state is saving $130,00 in salary per year. NorthEscambia.com reported that “Gov. Rick Scott was worth $83.77 million as he wrapped up his second year in office, according to a newly posted financial disclosure form. The blind trust, which accounts for $72.8 million, made $3.1 million in interest last year.”
Dan Krassner, executive director of Integrity Florida, questioned the independence of the blind trust since the company managing Scott’s account — Hollow Brook Wealth Management — included Scott’s portfolio manager for 10 years. An accountant at the company also worked for Scott for 12 years. Old cronies? It must depend on who’s asking.
The question here is not whether Scott is crooked but just how much of that crooked money did he keep? Think about it when standing in the voting booth next year.
http://www.ringoffireradio.com/2013/09/governor-rick-scott-still-hiding-money/

U.S. Sues Florida Over Disabled Children In Nursing Homes

MIAMI – The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Florida on Monday, accusing the state of unnecessarily keeping about 200 disabled children in nursing homes and cutting services that would allow them to receive care at home. Once they do get to the facility, federal officials said many stay for years, some literally grow up in a nursing home.

Federal investigators say they visited six nursing homes around the state and identified roughly 200 children who didn’t need to be there and could benefit from being care for at home or in the community. But instead, the children languish in facilities, sharing common areas with elderly patients and having few interactions with others, rarely leaving the nursing homes or going outside. Investigators noted the children are not exposed to social, educational and recreational activities that are critical to child development. Educational opportunities are limited to as little as 45 minutes a day, according to the lawsuit.
Investigators also said Florida is violating the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and is infringing on the children’s civil rights by segregating and isolating them. The average length of stay is three years,
The federal government threatened a lawsuit in September if the state failed to make changes to the system,

Health Care Administration Secretary Liz Dudek

but Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Liz Dudek first denied the allegations, then repeatedly stated the problems had been fixed. In the past, Dudek stressed the agency does not limit medically necessary home health services and that parent ultimately decide where to put their children in a nursing home.

State health officials and Attorney General Pam Bondi did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.
Parents have said they have are desperately fighting to get services to keep their children at home.
“(The state) pressures parents to place parents in institutionalized settings and then give them no way to get out,” said attorney Matthew Dietz, who filed a lawsuit two years ago against the state that mirrors the federal lawsuit.

Pam Bondi

He said the state has not addressed the issue, despite official claims.
The waiting list for services at home or in the community has jumped from 14,629 in 2005 to more than 21,000 in 2012, with more than half waiting longer than five years. Currently, state policy does not give priority on the waiting list to children in nursing homes, federal officials said.
At the same time, the state turned down nearly $40 million in federal funds for a program that transitions people from nursing homes back into the community. The state has also been paying community-based providers less, reducing payments by 15 percent last year because of legislative budget cuts. Yet the state implemented policies that expanded nursing home care by offering facilities a $500 enhanced daily rate for caring for children, which is more than double than what the state pays for adults, according to federal investigators.
EARLIER: The U.S. Justice Department is suing Florida, saying the state is unnecessarily keeping hundreds of disabled children in nursing homes.
According to the lawsuit filed Monday, federal officials visited six nursing homes around the state and identified roughly 200 children who didn’t need to be there and could receive care at home.
Federal officials concluded the state has made it difficult for disabled children to get medical services that would allow them to move home. According to the lawsuit, Florida’s system has led to unnecessary segregation and isolation of children, often for years.
The federal government threatened a lawsuit in September if the state failed to make changes to the system.
State health officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Check back at HeraldTribune.com for more on this developing story.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130722/WIRE/130729914/2416/NEWS?Title=UPDATE-U-S-sues-Florida-over-disabled-children-in-nursing-homes