Trial Opens in New Orleans Nursing Home Deaths

Aug. 17, 2007— -- ST. FRANCISVILLE, La. — The owners of a New Orleans-area nursing home ignored televised and government warnings of the growing strength of Hurricane Katrina and failed to evacuate 59 frail, elderly residents which resulted in the deaths of 35, a prosecutor told a jury Thursday.

The residents, some strapped to their beds or attached to feeding tubes, drowned when floodwaters poured into the St. Rita nursing home in St. Bernard Parish, just east of New Orleans. It was one of the deadliest events of the Aug. 29, 2005 storm.

"They not only exercised bad judgment in not evacuating that nursing home, it was criminally negligent judgment," lead prosecutor Paul Knight said during opening arguments at the first criminal trial against someone for Katrina-related events.

The husband-and-wife owners, Salvador and Mabel Mangano, are charged with 35 counts of negligent homicide and 24 counts of cruelty to the elderly or infirm. The trial could have far-reaching implications, as defense attorneys are expected to call high-profile witnesses, such as Gov. Kathleen Blanco, in an attempt to spread blame.

Defense attorney John Reid argued Thursday that Salvador, 67, and Mabel, 64, risked killing some of the residents if they moved them. The pair stayed in the home with the residents and their own relatives during the storm and saved some of them when the floods pounded in, Reid said.

No government official ordered them to evacuate and the Manganos decided to ride out the storm on what they thought was safe, high ground, he said. Then a "wall of water came and rose fast," filling the nursing home in 20 minutes, Reid said. Family members and aides used two nearby boats to evacuate 24 of the residents, but 35 drowned.

"The decision to stay or go is one of the weightiest decisions you could make," Reid said.

The trial was moved at the defense's request from St. Bernard Parish to this city 30 miles north of Baton Rouge.

Knight said his team will show that the nursing homeowners had ample warning to evacuate. He also said he will show that the nursing home had only one 12-passenger van for transporting the residents.