A family has filed a lawsuit against Mount Joseph nursing home, its owners and affiliated businesses, alleging that the neglect and abuse of a resident who died there in 2021 was caused by the owners understaffing the facility for financial gain.

The resident, 48-year-old Daniel Crommett, lived with mental and physical disabilities and was placed in the Waterville nursing home following a fall in June 2021. A medical note cited in the lawsuit says his condition significantly worsened during his time at the nursing home, where plaintiffs claim a nurse denied him medicine, falsified medical records and physically restrained him.

He died less than six months after entering the nursing home’s care.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Cumberland County Superior Court by Crommett’s father, John, and sisters, Krista and Carrie, who are accusing the defendants of negligence, neglect, abuse and wrongful death. They are also seeking damages to cover medical expenses, loss of future wages, pre-death pain and suffering, emotional distress, and they also seek punitive damages.

Crommett was given multiple pills a day at Mount Joseph to control seizures. On Sept. 16, 2021, the lawsuit said, a nurse noted that his medicine had run out and was told by the pharmacy that it had actually run out seven days earlier. Another nurse, Marius Ramirez, who worked the overnight shift, had falsely documented giving Crommett anti-seizure medication for the previous four days, the lawsuit said.

On Sept. 17, Crommett suffered a 10-minute seizure. His seizures continued to get worse and on Dec. 6, Ramirez pinned him down without orders to do so, and gave him medication known to increase the risk for seizures, the lawsuit contends.

Crommett’s sister discovered he was bruised and injured and transferred him to the hospital, where he died shortly thereafter.

After Crommett’s death, Ramirez, of Ellsworth, pleaded no contest in July 2023 to a misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a dependent person as part of an agreement with prosecutors, after initially facing felony-level charges. He served a 30-day sentence.

As part of his plea deal, he was required to surrender his nursing license for one year. Current records show Ramirez held an active nursing license with the state of Maine as of February.

Ramirez did not respond to request for comment Thursday.

Shenee Foster, a nurse at Mount Joseph at the time, said she brought concerns about Ramirez’s behavior to management multiple times and was ignored.

“Absolutely nothing was done,” Foster said. “I had gone to them multiple times about Marius, about Daniel in particular, but also about other residents — family members were complaining, residents were complaining, saying that he was rough with them, or that he hurt them. And every time I went to management, they just said, ‘Yep, thanks.’”

Mount Joseph leaders were aware of Ramirez’s behavior and had issued him a final warning as early as 2020, said Meryl Poulin, the plaintiffs’ attorney.

“It’s not just that the facility twice warned Ramirez, including a final warning, and knew that he was horrible to work with, horrible to residents, would falsify medical records,” Poulin said. “They found out about it again, and instead of firing him, they told the other nurse who brought it to the attention to shred the evidence.”

A reporter was unable to reach a Mount Joseph representative for comment.

Mount Joseph, which has more than 100 beds and is located at 7 Highwood St., holds a one-star rating with Medicare, denoting it as far below average.

The lawsuit also says the nursing home was unable to fire Ramirez and hire and train adequate staff because affiliated owners were underfunding the facility.

“This abuse and neglect was not the result of mistakes or ineptitude,” the lawsuit claims. “Rather, it was the inevitable result of a business strategy by Defendants to profit off the understaffing and underfunding the facility to enrich themselves.”

According to the lawsuit, officials at Waterville Center for Health and Rehab LLC, which does business as Mount Joseph, used MaineCare and Medicare reimbursements intended for patient services to pay rent to affiliated businesses, which are also listed as defendants. They include ELM Management Services & Consulting, a health consulting firm based in New York; and Highwood Realty LLC, a Maine limited liability company that owns the real estate used by Mount Joseph.

Highwood collects rent from Mount Joseph, the lawsuit says.

All three companies are owned and managed by defendant Michael Biderman, according to the lawsuit and a 2021 application with the state to transfer ownership of Mount Joseph to Biderman.

A reporter was transferred to Michael Biderman’s number through ELM’s staff directory; the person who picked up denied he was Biderman and that he worked for ELM, and hung up when asked his name. A subsequent call went to a voicemail that identified the number as Biderman’s.

Poulin said defendants, including Biderman, collected inflated rent from Mount Joseph that had “a profit for the owners embedded within it.” Between July and December 2021, the lawsuit said, defendants “paid Highwood $720,000 in ‘rent,’ a figure amounting to 11% of its revenue, far above the industry norm of 5%.”

The siphoning of these resources underfunded and understaffed Mount Joseph, Poulin said.

“It goes up to the people who own the facility, and who own and operate the related companies that they are using to siphon resources out of the facility,” Poulin said. “Which is why the facility can’t fire Marius Ramirez, can’t get more staff, can’t get the resources they need to take care of someone like Dan Crommett.”

Foster said Mount Joseph was often short-staffed, with “anywhere from 40 to 50 residents” under the care of “one nurse and one to two (nursing assistants), if we were lucky.”

Biderman owns and operates three other nursing homes, one in Massachusetts and two in Maryland.

Poulin said Crommett’s family deserves justice for his suffering under Mount Joseph’s care.

“This should not happen, especially not to people who are vulnerable, who are in nursing homes to begin with,” she said. “Especially not people like Dan Crommett, who cannot advocate for himself, and therefore can’t say: ‘I’m hurting, I’m suffering, I’m uncomfortable, I’m unhappy.’”