DALLAS — A Senate Committee investigating the collapse of Dallas-based Steward Health Care on Thursday passed civil and criminal contempt resolutions against the health system’s CEO for defying a subpoena to testify before the panel.
The vote came after Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre failed to comply with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions’ first subpoena since 1981 to testify at a hearing Sept. 12.
The committee, in the rare move, attributed much of Steward's financial mismanagement to de la Torre, a Dallas resident, and brought his lavish lifestyle, including a yacht and contributions to an elite North Texas private school, under scrutiny, according to testimony and allegations from Senators, including Bernie Sanders.
“For months, the committee has invited Dr. de la Torre to testify about the financial mismanagement of Steward Health Care,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, said. “Time after time, he has arrogantly refused.”
“Therefore, Dr. de la Torre has given us no choice but to move forward with two resolutions to enforce this subpoena and to hold him accountable for his actions,” Sanders added.
In a letter to the committee obtained by the Associated Press, an attorney for de la Torre, Alexander Merton, argued the committee’s compelling de la Torre to testify would violate his Constitutional rights. Merton told the Associated Press that de la Torre would agree to testify at a later date.
“Our concerns that the hearing would be used to ambush Dr. de la Torre in a pseudo-criminal proceeding were on full display last week, with the Committee soliciting testimony from witnesses calling Dr. de la Torre and Steward executives ‘health care terrorists’ and advocating for Dr. de la Torre’s imprisonment,” Merton wrote in the letter.
Both resolutions will advance to the full Senate. The criminal contempt resolution would refer the issue to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to consider potential criminal charges against de la Torre for failing to comply with the subpoena, according to the committee. The civil resolution instructs the Senate Legal Counsel to file a civil suit requiring de la Torre to testify before the committee.
The Senate Committee authorized the investigation into the bankruptcy of Steward Health Care July 24.
What to know about Steward Health Care’s bankruptcy and de la Torre’s North Texas connections
Steward Health Care, one of the country’s largest private health systems, filed for bankruptcy in May and since has faced the ire of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, closed hospitals, and faced allegations of insufficient care.
Since then, Steward has been working to sell its more than a half-dozen hospitals in Massachusetts but received inadequate bids for two other hospitals — Carney Hospital in Boston and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in the town of Ayer — both of which closed as a result, the Associated Press reported.
Meanwhile, Sanders alleged during a hearing that de la Torre amassed hundreds of millions of dollars personally, buying a $40 million yacht and a $15 million luxury fishing boat.
“Working with private equity executives, Dr. de la Torre became obscenely wealthy by loading up hospitals from Massachusetts to Arizona with billions in debt and selling the land underneath these hospitals to real estate executives who charge unsustainably high rent,” Sanders said.
Steward operates about 30 hospitals around the country, including facilities in Texas, Massachusetts, and other states, according to their website.
Ralph de la Torre, a former cardiac surgeon, got a controlling stake in Steward in 2010 when the company’s private equity owner Cerberus Capital Management acquired a six-hospital Massachusetts health system he led.
De la Torre owns an 11,108-square-foot home in the Preston Hollow neighborhood of Dallas, valued at $7.2 million by the county, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The newspaper reports de la Torre paid at least $7.2 million in 2022 for a ranch 45 miles south of Waxahachie.
Sanders’ office said Steward disclosed $3 million in contributions to the Greenhill School in Addison, where his sons reportedly attend.
“Its quarterly magazine lists de la Torre’s donation as originating from the 'de la Torre Family Foundation.' But the only active, tax-exempt foundation in Ralph de la Torre’s name is the Texas-based 'De La Torre Charitable Trust,' which listed just $7,034 in cash at the beginning of 2022 and reported no donations from 2021 onward, public tax filings show,” a spokesperson for Sanders told WFAA on Greenhill. ”His faltering hospital chain filled the gap. Steward Health Care Systems LLC — the entity that oversees and manages all of Steward’s community hospitals — made $3 million in donations to the Greenhill School between May and August 2023, according to documents filed in the hospital chain’s bankruptcy case.”
Greenhill opened the Rosa O. Valdes STEM + Innovation Center, a new 52,000-square-foot facility for math, science, technology and robotics classes in March. The center is named for de la Torre’s mother in March, the Wall Street Journal reports.
A Steward Health Care spokesperson declined to comment on the bankruptcy and didn’t respond to a request for comment on the contributions to Greenhill.
Greenhill School didn’t respond to a request for comment about the contributions.
According to its website, Steward operates five hospitals in Texas -- in Port Arthur, Odessa, Big Spring, Houston and Texarkana. Healthcare Systems of America (HSA) recently assumed operational control of Steward's Medical Center of Southeast Texas and St. Joseph Medical Center in Houston.
It’s unclear how many people the hospital system employs in Texas or in its headquarters overlooking Klyde Warren Park.
