An Arizona assisted living owner has turned over control of its community to a third-party operator following allegations of elder abuse and consumer fraud.
The Maricopa County Superior Court this week appointed a receiver for Heritage Village Assisted Living in Mesa. Attorney General Kris Mayes said the move was to “protect residents, bring the facility into compliance with state regulations and manage the facility’s finances.”
Gary Langendoen, senior managing director of Madison Realty Companies, which manages the community, called the appointment of Peter S. Davis as receiver “an important step forward” for the community and its 150 residents.
“Through the process with the attorney general’s office, we shared a single uppermost priority — to ensure that our residents receive the highest quality care available,” Langendoen said in a statement to McKnight’s Senior Living. He said two-thirds of residents are seen on a regular basis by healthcare providers contracted with the Arizona Long Term Care System and that ALTCS and the three insurance companies administering the program “are satisfied with the care being provided to their participants who live at the facility.”
Langendoen added that Heritage Village has worked with state regulators to correct deficiencies and terminated its previous management company in 2022. Since then, he said, the community has made “substantial” changes to the community’s operations, management and personnel, including putting in place a new executive director and hiring a quality assurance consultant to assess care quality.
“Even before the receivership process, Heritage Village expanded the size of its care team from about 70 employees to more than 110 employees and hired a nurse to serve as the facility‘s wellness coordinator,” Langendoen said, adding that seven resident care coordinators with caregiver certification and dispensing medication training also were added. “The facility has tightened security, extended shifts to increase continuity of care and contracted with an on-site medical clinic whose professional staff currently sees about one-third of residents.”
He said a protracted court process would not have benefited anyone.
“At the end of the day, everyone wants the same thing, and that’s for our residents to be safe, happy and have the best possible quality of life,” Langendoen said. “We’re happy to have resolved this matter by working with the attorney general’s team and look forward to smoothly transitioning operations under the oversight of the receiver.”
Mayes asked the court in March to appoint a receiver following the filing of a lawsuit alleging that Madison Realty Companies LLC and its owners, Langendoen and Matthew Arnold, engaged in a “web of real estate entities” controlling Heritage Village. The lawsuit also named Mohammad Munzer Nasser, the community’s medical director, and Executive Director Melinda “Linde” Leibfried, as well as Ability Hospice, owned by Leibfried’s husband, Joseph Leibfried.
“The vulnerable residents at Heritage Village face not only the danger of inadequate care and dangerous conditions but also the danger of Heritage Village shutting down entirely because it lost its license,” Mayes said in a statement.
Mayes said she “does not intend to let the current owners ever resume operating the facility. She further stated that assisted living communities should be run by qualified healthcare providers, “not real estate speculators.”
Investigation leads to court action
Heritage Village was featured in a 2023 Arizona Republic series about resident-on-resident violence in assisted living communities in the state and the “brutal rape” of a resident by an employee at Heritage Village. The Arizona Department of Health Services conducted a series of facility surveys following the series and identified “dozens of violations,” according to the complaint against Heritage Village, which led to a Jan. 12 notice of intent to revoke the facility’s license because residents’ life, health and/or safety were in “immediate danger.”
The state investigation determined that the community had endangered residents, committing consumer fraud by “holding itself out as a facility capable of providing specialized care to vulnerable adults while systematically understaffing the facility” and providing inadequate care.
The state survey found that Heritage Village had not reported resident injuries resulting in hospitalization and failed to provide caregiver training and maintain service documentation. The community also was cited for prescription medication violations, faulty door alarms, environmental hazards and lack of resident service plans, among other issues.
