The owner of a Hollywood nursing home, where 12 residents died in the three days following Hurricane Irma in 2017, won’t go on trial before next June at the earliest.
Jorge Carballo, 64, is facing a dozen charges of aggravated manslaughter because the victims, ranging in age from 57 to 99, were kept in the Rehabilitation Center of Hollywood Hills after it lost power and air conditioning, prosecutors said.
Paramedics reported some of the victims had body temperatures of up to 108 degrees.
Carballo and his staff were criticized for not moving the residents across the street to Memorial Regional Hospital which had air conditioning and electricity after the storm.
Get South Florida local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC South Florida newsletters.
Carballo's case was discussed in court Friday afternoon.
Broward assistant state attorney Chris Killoran countered Carballo was in the nursing home at the time it lost power but went home.
“He could have called 911. Anyone could have called 911,” he said. “There were 126 patients. It was an inferno.”
Defense attorney James Cobb told Broward Circuit Judge John Murphy the deaths were “not foreseeable.”
“This is not a captain of a ship who is in his cabin drinking while the ship ran aground and people died,” Cobb said. “[Carballo] was boots on the ground. He was doing the best he knew how to do.”
Killoran said the staff was not trained for this kind of emergency.
“These people were left hanging,” he said.
Charges were dropped against nurses Althia Meggie, Sergo Colin and Tamika Miller Sept. 22.
The state has more than 70 witnesses and 35 video clips to present to a jury of six people during a trial that’s expected to last up to six weeks, Killoran estimated.
The victims were identified in court records as Betty Hibbard, Carolyn Eatherly, Manuel Mendieta, Bobby Owens, Gail Nova, Miguel Franco, Cecilia Franco, Estella Hendricks, Albertina Vega, Dolores Biamonte, Carlos Canal, and Martha Murray.
