Laurie Bebo is suing her former employer, Assisted Living Concepts, for almost $900,000 to cover the legal fees and related expenses she has accumulated as part of a federal civil lawsuit against her and her own lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Milwaukee Business Journal is reporting.
The former CEO filed the latest action Aug. 27 in Waukesha County Circuit Court, claiming that the bylaws of Assisted Living Concepts mandate that the company, at minimum, pay for her legal costs in advance. Bebo, according to the newspaper, asserts that the company has lowered the dollar amounts she is pursuing via invoices submitted for the expenses.
As McKnight’s Senior Living previously reported, the SEC filed fraud charges against Bebo in late 2014, alleging that she directed employees to include phony residents in occupancy rate and coverage ratio calculations for eight properties from 2009 to 2012. Assisted Living Concepts terminated Bebo’s employment in mid 2012. The company changed its name to Enlivant last year after having moved its headquarters from Menomonee Falls, WI, to Chicago in late 2013. Enlivant is part of the portfolio of TPG Capital.
Bebo’s latest action comes a few days after a federal appeals court ruled that she must wait until an in-house process at the SEC is complete before bringing a constitutional challenge in the fraud case against her. Bebo had sued the SEC earlier this year, maintaining that its internal proceedings, using an administrative law judge instead of a federal judge and jury, would deprive her of her rights to equal protection and due process.
