(Bloomberg) — The US Senate voted Wednesday to hold Steward Health Care’s chief executive officer in criminal contempt for failing to testify about his role in the collapse of the bankrupt hospital operator’s finances.
Most Read from Bloomberg
The bipartisan vote means Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre’s failure to comply with a Senate health committee subpoena will be referred for criminal prosecution to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia.
“If you defy a Congressional subpoena, you will be held accountable no matter who you are or how well-connected you may be,” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, chair of the health committee, said during a Senate hearing. It’s the first time the US Senate has passed a resolution to hold someone in criminal contempt in fifty years.
The move comes after de la Torre failed to comply with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions’ first subpoena since 1981. Last week, the committee voted to pass civil and criminal contempt resolutions against him.
Rebecca Kral, a spokesperson for de la Torre, said in a statement Thursday that the Senate has “weaponized Congress’s civil and criminal contempt procedures to punish Dr. de la Torre” and are violating his constitutional rights. De la Torre invoked his fifth amendment rights in response to the Senate subpoena, she said.
“Over the past decade Steward, led by its founder and CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre and his corporate enablers looted hospitals across the count for their own profit and while they got rich, workers, patients and communities suffered,” said Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey during the hearing.
(Update adds Thursday statement from de la Torre’s spokeswoman in fifth paragraph)
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
