Nearly a year ago, the Benjamin Healthcare Center, the nursing home located in Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood, was placed under a court-appointed receiver in an emergency bid to avoid closure of the facility and allow it to begin a turnaround.
But as the one-year anniversary approaches, the receiver and his administrator are trading new allegations of mismanagement at the nursing home and rehab facility. Established in 1927 to serve the Black community, the Benjamin has more than 80 patients and residents, the vast majority of them people of color, according to records filed in court.
The administrator, Delicia Mark, said in an interview she feels she has a “target on my back” and alleged she was the subject of harassment and intimidation from the receiver, Joseph Feaster, and his assistant, former state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, because Mark questioned some of their decisions. Mark wrote a letter to a Superior Court judge outlining her concerns and allegations, which came up during a court hearing last week and included her pushback on several hiring decisions and a contract she said were made by Wilkerson and Feaster. (Feaster and Wilkerson didn’t respond to requests for comment on these allegations.)
Feaster, appointed as the receiver in order for the Benjamin to avoid bankruptcy and closure, said Mark was in danger of missing payroll earlier this month, and he had to dip into his personal funds to help cover the $50,000 shortfall. Feaster credited Wilkerson with flagging the issue, and faulted Mark for not planning ahead to deal with the shortfall. Mark said she hasn’t done anything wrong and claimed it wasn’t necessary for Feaster to use his own funds since the facility was set to receive money from other sources.
Originally set to expire in June 2024, the Benjamin’s receivership status has been extended twice and is currently set to last until June 2025. State officials have advanced hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Benjamin to help Feaster stabilize the facility and its finances, according to court records.
At a Superior Court hearing on March 19, the status of spending within the facility touched on the allegations of mismanagement, which troubled the judge, Christopher Belezos. The judge acknowledged he had received the letter from Mark, as well as a second letter claiming to be from anonymous staffers and leveling allegations that Wilkerson’s relatives received jobs and money for their work at the facility.
Both letters raise concerns, Belezos said, adding that he wants to see the facility’s financial information at the next court hearing on April 2. “Sounds like we’re back in an emergency situation,” Belezos said.
Both Feaster and Wilkerson did not respond to email requests for comment on Mark’s claims of harassment and the allegations that Wilkerson’s family received employment. At the hearing, Wilkerson directed questions from CommonWealth Beacon to Feaster when asked if any of her relatives had been hired at the Benjamin.
Feaster told CommonWealth Beacon on Wednesday after the hearing that the Benjamin hires the lowest bidder on proposals when it comes to contracts. He reiterated that he hadn’t had a chance to delve into the allegations in the letters. “I’m too good a lawyer to respond to a document that I haven’t read,” he said.
“When I give the court the response, you will get it,” Feaster added. “I’ve dealt with some of those issues and that’s just some comments by whomever made them, because I haven’t seen the document. But in any event I’ll respond to it, to the court.”
Lawyers with Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office, which represents state agencies like the Department of Public Health, a regulator of nursing homes, have previously pressed for more detailed financial information from Feaster while supporting the extension of the receivership, according to court records.
In a December legal filing, Campbell’s office said Feaster made “significant efforts to address fiscal irregularities and record-keeping deficiencies that occurred prior to his appointment.” The previous failures to make payroll, under the former administration, meant employees risked not getting paid to care for the nursing home’s residents, which in turn created a serious risk to health and safety of the residents, the office said.
As part of an effort to claw back funds for the Benjamin, Feaster is pursuing a civil lawsuit against the facility’s previous director, Tony Francis, who ran the Benjamin before Feaster’s appointment as receiver. Feaster has also retained an accounting firm, which has spent $200,000 as part of a forensic financial audit. “We’re trying to see if we can salvage this institution,” Feaster told the judge. (An attempt to reach Francis through his attorney was unsuccessful by press time.)
But Judge Belezos ordered a pause on spending on the litigation and the audit, saying he has some potential issues with the state funds sent to the Benjamin being used to pursue litigation against the previous director. “I think there are problems with that,” he said.
When Belezos brought up the letter from Mark, the current administrator, and the second letter purportedly from an anonymous group of Benjamin staffers, Feaster said he had only a chance to skim what was in the documents after a court clerk distributed them.
Mary Freeley, an attorney in Campbell’s office, said she also hasn’t had a chance to look into the allegations but suggested the second letter could be categorized as a whistleblower complaint.
“I don’t know who they are,” Judge Belezos responded, noting they did not leave any names or initials in the letter, and he didn’t know if he is able to grant them whistleblower status.
A CommonWealth Beacon attempt to reach the anonymous group of staffers last week through an email provided with the letter was unsuccessful. The letter alleged that some of Wilkerson’s relatives were put on the Benjamin’s payroll, and a snow removal company with ties to her family received a contract without a bidding process.
Mark, the current administrator, said in an interview with CommonWealth Beacon she faced pushback from Feaster and Wilkerson when she asked about several issues, including the snow removal contract. Mark started the job under Feaster in May. She previously worked at the Benjamin more than 15 years ago as a scheduler.
Feaster hired Wilkerson as his executive assistant, or secretary, upon his appointment as receiver last April. A former state senator, Wilkerson pleaded guilty to failing to pay federal income taxes in the 1990s, and in the 2000s, she went to prison for accepting more than $20,000 in bribes. Since exiting prison, she made an unsuccessful run for her old Senate seat and has maintained a presence in the area as a community activist. | 
