The owners of a nursing home where 34 people were found dead after Hurricane Katrina have been arrested and charged with 34 counts of negligent homicide.
Mable Mangano and her husband, Salvador Mangano Sr., surrendered to Medicaid fraud investigators in Baton Rouge yesterday and were being held in a parish prison.
The Manganos declined an offer from St. Bernard Parish authorities of buses to evacuate the residents of their facility, and they did not use a contract they had with an ambulance service, the state said.
"When we decide we're going to put ourselves in harm's way, we do it voluntarily and it's our problem. But you can't do it when you have the care and control and custody of patients," Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti told a briefing.
"Thirty-four people drowned in a nursing home when it should have been evacuated. I cannot say it any plainer than that," Foti said, his voice rising with anger.
The Manganos' attorney said he had made arrangements with Foti's office last week to bring them in today for an interview with law enforcement officials, and he said Foti backed out of that and arrested them instead.
"To me it makes the timing of what he's done and the manner in which he's done it highly suspect," attorney James Cobb told reporters on the grounds of the state homeland security department offices. He said the Manganos were faced with the prospect of their residents dying anyway.
"What people have to understand is, you're presented with a horrible choice," Cobb said. "You take people who are on feeder tubes, who are on oxygen, who are on medications and you put them on a bus to go 70 miles in 12 hours? People are going to die, people are going to die, we know that."
The 34 were found in recent days in an advanced state of decomposition, Foti said, though it is presumed that they drowned when the storm hit.
Foti declined to say if the Manganos remained at the nursing home throughout the storm or if they fled before it struck on August 29.
Cobb said the Manganos would be released on their own recognizance on Tuesday, though paperwork was delaying their release until late in the evening.