What New Jersey’s Worst Nursing Home Cases Teach Families About Spotting Neglect

The short answer: the New Jersey nursing home failures that have reached the courts and state investigators in recent years share a pattern. Staffing falls far below what the law requires, residents wait hours for basic help, inspection scores sink, and the money that should have paid for care goes elsewhere. Individual acts of abuse tend to happen in the same environments. Families cannot see a facility’s books, but they can see the warning signs those cases describe, and public data now makes several of them checkable before admission.

This article walks through three public matters: the 2022 state receivership and closure of the Andover facility later known as Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center, the December 2025 State Comptroller report on the Hammonton and Deptford Centers for Rehabilitation and Healthcare, and the August 2026 guilty pleas of two Ocean County nurses. Each is drawn from court orders, state reports, and Attorney General releases. Milvidskiy Law Group did not represent any party in any of them.

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Andover and Woodland: When the State Takes Over a Nursing Home

The facility in Andover Township, Sussex County, first drew national attention in April 2020, when police responding to a tip found 17 bodies in a makeshift morgue during the first wave of COVID-19. Federal inspectors found the facility out of substantial compliance, fined it, and required a corrective action plan. According to a summary released by Representative Josh Gottheimer’s office in October 2022, the 2020 inspection findings included missing temperature logs, lack of symptom documentation, infection control failures, a resident fall resulting in death, and an altercation that caused an injury requiring surgery. The facility had already, in 2017, paid $888,000 to resolve federal allegations that it billed for materially substandard or worthless nursing services and had entered a corporate integrity agreement that ran until December 2022.

The facility was renamed Woodland Behavioral and Nursing Center. In January 2022 it experienced what the state described as the worst omicron outbreak in New Jersey at the time. In March 2022 the Department of Health cited it for significant health and safety violations and appointed Atlantic Health System as a monitor. The monitor’s guidance did not produce results. On May 24, 2022, the Departments of Health and Human Services petitioned the Superior Court to appoint a receiver, stating that “the facility’s operators have failed to address and maintain adequate staffing levels and a safe environment of care” despite state and federal oversight. The state’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman said publicly that conditions “remain poor for the residents who live there.”

On May 27, 2022, a Superior Court judge placed the facility into temporary receivership and appointed Allen Wilen of EisnerAmper as receiver, with authority over finances and operations and a mandate to keep the facility running during a transition. The day before, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had notified the facility that its Medicare provider agreement would terminate on June 25, 2022. The facility closed in August 2022, and every resident was transferred elsewhere. Federal statements cited in the October 2022 congressional release put the civil penalty at $220,235 and the number of resident COVID deaths since October 2021 at 30.

Receivership is the state’s most drastic tool, used when a facility cannot be trusted to run itself. It came only after two years of fines, monitoring, and corrective plans. The lesson for families is that a facility can remain open, licensed, and admitting residents for a long time after its problems are known to regulators.

Hammonton and Deptford: Less Than Half the Required Care

On December 10, 2025, the New Jersey Office of the State Comptroller published the results of a five-and-a-half-year investigation into Hammonton Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare in Atlantic County and Deptford Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare in Gloucester County, both owned by Daryl Hagler and Kenneth Rozenberg. The review period ran from January 2019 to June 2024.

The staffing findings were stark. Hammonton was understaffed by an average of 52 percent per day and failed to meet minimum staffing requirements on all 82 days sampled. Deptford was understaffed by an average of 54 percent and failed on 62 of 64 sample days. Both lacked a registered nurse on duty for the majority of days sampled. In the Comptroller’s words, “residents in both facilities received less than half the minimum of direct care they were required by law to receive.” Both facilities averaged one to two stars on the federal five-star scale against a state average of 3.4 and were repeatedly designated Special Focus Facilities, the federal list of the worst-performing nursing homes. The report described missed medications, residents left in soiled conditions for hours, delayed emergency responses, and at least one preventable death. Police records showed more than 2,400 calls from Deptford residents and about 1,000 from Hammonton residents seeking help.

The financial findings explain the staffing. Of $134.8 million in New Jersey Medicaid funding, the owners moved $92 million through related-party companies they controlled, including property companies, staffing firms, management consultants, IT providers, and a laboratory, and disclosed only $882,666 of it, less than one percent, on required cost reports. The report describes $27.8 million in duplicative “additional rent” extracted through bundled mortgages, misclassified acquisition costs, and payments to related parties without documentation that services were provided. The Comptroller sought recovery of roughly $123.9 million and recommended that the individuals be barred from New Jersey Medicaid. The report’s own conclusion: “It should not take a multi-year investigation to detect fraud of this magnitude.”

The same two owners agreed in November 2024 to a $45 million settlement with the New York Attorney General over four New York facilities, which we describe in a companion article. The pattern the Comptroller describes, chronic understaffing alongside diversion of funds to related companies, is the pattern regulators in both states now treat as a signal of fraud.

Crystal Lake and Whiting Gardens: Individual Accountability

Neglect at the facility level creates the conditions for abuse by individuals, and New Jersey prosecutes those individuals. On August 28, 2026, the Attorney General announced guilty pleas by two nurses in Ocean County long-term care facilities, both prosecuted by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit within the Office of the Insurance Fraud Prosecutor.

Patricia Lindo-Ahono, 60, was the Director of Nursing at Crystal Lake Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Bayville. She admitted that on June 24, 2023 she struck a 77-year-old resident with a broom and then tried to persuade a witness to withhold information from investigators. She pleaded guilty to third-degree tampering with witnesses and fourth-degree assault upon an institutionalized elderly person. Prosecutors recommended three years of probation, anger management, and 50 hours of community service, and she agreed to permanently surrender her nursing license. Sentencing was scheduled for October 30, 2026.

Lisa L. Erikson, 57, a licensed practical nurse at Whiting Gardens Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, pleaded guilty to second-degree aggravated assault, third-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and third-degree neglect of an elderly adult. According to the Attorney General’s account, on March 19, 2025 she pepper-sprayed an elderly resident with dementia at close range as he tried to shield himself, sprayed him again, left him on the floor, and later helped forcibly remove him from another resident’s room without providing medical care. Prosecutors recommended 364 days in county jail as a condition of probation, and she agreed to permanently surrender her license. Sentencing was scheduled for November 13, 2026.

Attorney General Davenport’s statement on the Lindo-Ahono plea captured the point: the defendant “abdicated her responsibilities, assaulted a resident, and then attempted to cover it up.” The director of nursing is the person families are told to go to with concerns. Both cases were pending sentencing when this article was written, and the sentences imposed may differ from the recommendations.

What Families Can Check Before and After Admission

The facts in these matters were, for the most part, visible before they became cases. Families can look for the same signals:

• Star ratings and the Special Focus Facility list. The federal Care Compare site publishes each nursing home’s overall, staffing, and inspection ratings and flags Special Focus Facilities. Hammonton and Deptford sat at one and two stars for years.
• Staffing hours per resident per day. Facilities report daily staffing to the federal government and the data is public. Ask the administrator what the facility’s average nursing hours per resident are and how many registered nurses are on duty overnight and on weekends.
• Inspection reports. State survey findings, including “immediate jeopardy” citations, are public. A facility with repeated citations for the same deficiency has a management problem, not a paperwork problem.
• Ownership and related parties. Federal ownership data shows whether the operator, landlord, and vendors share owners. Common ownership is legal, but it is the structure both the Comptroller and the New York Attorney General identified as the vehicle for diverting funds.
• What you see on visits. Unanswered call bells, residents in soiled clothing, meals left uneaten, strong odors, and staff who cannot say who is responsible for your parent are the observable side of understaffing. Visit at different times, including evenings and weekends, and write down what you see.
• How complaints are handled. A facility that responds to a written concern with a meeting and a plan is different from one that responds with a shrug. Escalate in writing, keep copies, and do not wait.

Where to Report

The New Jersey Department of Health takes complaints about nursing homes and assisted living facilities 24 hours a day at 1-800-792-9770 and online, and accepts anonymous complaints. The New Jersey Long-Term Care Ombudsman investigates abuse, neglect, and exploitation in nursing homes and other licensed settings at 1-877-582-6995. Suspected crimes should be reported to local police as well. Our article on what to do if you suspect neglect or abuse in a nursing home covers the immediate steps, and our companion piece on two 2026 New Jersey appellate decisions explains the rights residents can enforce in court.

Plan Well. Live Better.

The best protection against a bad facility is never needing one on short notice. Families who plan for long-term care while a parent is still well have time to research facilities, ask hard questions, and walk away. At Milvidskiy Law Group, we help families plan for long-term care, qualify for benefits, and understand a resident’s rights before a crisis forces the decision. Learn more about our elder law services.

Milvidskiy Law Group did not represent any party in the matters described in this article. The account is drawn from public court orders, the New Jersey Department of Health, the Office of the State Comptroller, the Office of the Attorney General, and federal agency releases. It is for general informational purposes only, does not constitute legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Criminal sentences described as recommendations had not been imposed when this article was written. Facts were verified against public sources in September 2026 and should be confirmed before relying on them.