Pearl River boarding house owner indicted in elder-abuse investigation
Journal News, The (Westchester County, NY)
Author: Steve Lieberman; Staff
NEW CITY - An owner of a Pearl River boarding house was indicted yesterday on felony charges accusing her of causing the hospitalization of an 87-year-old woman, the only person living at the facility on South Middletown Road.
Maureen Culhane and her husband, Michael, who was arrested on a sealed indictment Wednesday and was being held on $75,000 bail, are both accused of being responsible for the woman's hospitalization in January with malnutrition, ulcers, and infections from bedsores developed at their Adare Manor.
The woman was dehydrated and senile, District Attorney Michael Bongiorno said. The woman was the only resident of the facility, which has been closed since she was removed in January.
"The severity of the bedsores indicated that the victim had not been moved for weeks,'' Bongiorno said. "I consider this elder abuse.''
The Culhanes have pleaded not guilty to first-degree endangering the welfare of a vulnerable elderly person and first-degree reckless endangerment, both felonies, and endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person, a misdemeanor.
The Culhanes were being held last night in the county jail on $75,000 bond or $25,000 cash bail set by Judge William Kelly.
The Culhanes gave as an address 79 W. Grand St., Montvale, N.J., a boarding house for elderly people that was shut down by New Jersey last week for allowing people to live in unsanitary conditions.
The bedridden woman, found locked in her room at Adare Manor on Jan. 28 by Pearl River firefighters, had been living there since August, after spending nearly five years living at the Culhanes' boarding house in Montvale.
Bongiorno said the Culhanes moved the woman to Adare Manor from the New Jersey facility.
The firefighters found the woman after responding to an alarm at the building. When they arrived, they discovered the sprinkler system had frozen and a pipe had burst. Since the building was locked, firefighters entered through a window to search the rooms as a precaution.
Finding the woman led to an investigation by Orangetown Detective Thomas Hoffman and the District Attorney's Office.
Adare Manor was issued a county rooming house permit for this year after the building passed a Rockland Health Department inspection in December.
The Culhanes also face potential criminal charges in New Jersey for the operation of their Hillas Vale Guest Lodge boarding house in Montvale, Bergen County Prosecutor William H. Schmidt told the Record of Hackensack newspaper in an article published Sunday.