Felony charges against Silverado CEO Loren Shook and two other employees have been dropped, the company announced Thursday.
Shook, along with company leaders Jason Russo and Kim Butrum, were previously charged with 13 felony counts of elder endangerment and five felony counts of violation causing death. Irvine, California-based Silverado also faced charges as a company.
On Thursday, Shook told Senior Housing News he felt “a terrific feeling of vindication” after the dismissal of the charges
“The fact that we were exonerated so clearly, and relatively early on in the legal process by a judge, is a great win,” he said. “I’m relieved to be able to work full time on the things that we do to change people’s lives.”
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón first announced the charges in March after a two-and-a-half year investigation into a Silverado community in Los Angeles, where an early 2020 Covid-19 outbreak resulted in 13 residents and an employee dying and dozens others falling ill.
The case had potentially widespread industry implications given it stemmed from alleged missteps in the earliest days of the pandemic, when so little was known about the disease, legal experts told Senior Housing News at the time the charges were announced. Memory care operators in particular ran into harrowing difficulties in the earliest stages of the Covid-19 pandemic as they struggled to stop the spread of the disease.
“A win here isn’t just a win for Silverado, it’s a win for senior housing operators,” Shook said.
David Schless, president of the American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA), also applauded the dismissal of the felony charges.
“The criminal charges were outrageous and completely unwarranted given the circumstances of this tragic outbreak which took place at the outset of the global pandemic before the world fully understood the spread of the disease and before the industry had access to testing kits and other necessary tools to fight Covid-19,” he wrote in an Oct. 26 email to ASHA members.
‘Good to be back’
Though Shook said he “never took [his] eye off of moving the company forward” in recent months, dealing with the criminal charges was a huge time sink that required him to give up his time most weekends.
With a significant worry and distraction now behind him, Shook said he is turning his focus back to several of Silverado’s initiatives for the year ahead.
Among them is a research project with University of California, Irvine, studying the importance of olfactory systems among older adults with dementia.
“That’s a breakthrough, and that’s what we do: Breakthrough innovations,” Shook said. “There are many more in the queue.”
All the while, Silverado has added 11 percentage points to its average occupancy this year, with continued pricing power on rates, he added. Now, the company is nearing its financial performance of the pre-Covid era, with plans to grow into new areas of expertise such as palliative care and hospice.
“It’s good to be back,” Shook said.
For more memory care news, subscribe to Memory Care Business.
