– Kennedy Remains Silent on Relationship with Wellpath CEO,  As New Details Emerge Regarding His Leadership-

[April 27, 2020 – Longport, New Jersey] Amy Kennedy’s campaign for Congress continues to defend Wellpath, a scandal-ridden for profit, health care contractor that has been the subject of more than 70 wrongful death lawsuits and 1,395 federal lawsuits in over 120 locations in 32 states.  Specifically, the company, which originally had branded itself under the name Correct Care Solutions, has had a long history of providing substandard medical care to a network of for-profit prisons and has been notorious for providing fatally poor care in immigration detention centers where ICE locks up thousands of immigrants.

In an initial story by the New Jersey Globe five days ago, it was confirmed that the Kennedy campaign had received thousands of dollars in bundled donations from Wellpath executives and that Amy Kennedy’s husband, former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, joined the Wellpath Board of Directors in February 2020, the same time these donations were provided to the campaign.  Most notable was a donation of $5,600.00 from Wellpath Chief Executive Officer Jorge Dominicis, who has helmed the company since 2014.  Brigid Callahan Harrison has since called on Amy Kennedy to give back the money and explain her husband’s Patrick relationship with Mr. Dominicis.

Since the release of this information five days ago, more additional concerns regarding Wellpath’s CEO Jorge Dominics leadership have emerged:

• Throughout the country, Wellpath has used campaign contributions to pay off elected officials who reward the company with lucrative government contracts.
• In Louisiana, Wellpath, then branded as Correct Care Solutions, was hired through a closed-door contract-awarding process that drew criticism from city officials and the New Orleans Office of Inspector General. The companies practices at the Orleans Justice Center have since been cited in wrongful death lawsuits and in reports by a federally appointed team that monitors the jail as part of the consent decree.
• Fulton County, GA, terminated its contract with the health care contractors after five people died within a span of 75 days in 2017.
• A lawsuit filed in May 2018 against the company alleged that in Douglas County, Nebraska more than a dozen people were denied medical treatment for serious ailments, including a stroke, a broken hip and lung cancer. According to the lawsuit, the company’s contract with the county detention center created “perverse incentives” because the company “makes more money under the contract when they refuse to provide inmates with necessary medical care.”
• In August 2018, a video was released as part of a wrongful death lawsuit against the company that showed a detainee at a Westchester, NY, county jail collapsing on the ground and being wheeled back to his cell in a wheelchair. He died soon after from a heart attack, and a state legislator concluded that “looking at this video, it would take more persuasion to get me to go along with the point of view that we should have CCS or another for-profit entity running the medical department [inside the jail].”
• In November 2018, Senator Elizabeth Warren and ten other United States Senators sent a letter to Mr. Dominics expressing concern about the poor medical conditions at the notorious Adelanto ICE Processing Center and highlighted a New York Times article that describes detainees staging hunger strikes in protest of their treatment.
• Most recently, in New Jersey, the out-of-state company, which provides medical services for New Jersey’s Hudson County Jail, recently lost two nurses, members of ASFCME in April who both died of from complications of the coronavirus.

“Each passing day brings more light to the Kennedy’s relationship with this scandal-ridden, for-profit, out of state health care contracting company,” stated Brigid Callahan Harrison, Democratic Candidate for the 2^nd Congressional District of New Jersey.  “Here is what we know.  We have a clearly questionable health care provider with a long record of issues and improprieties.  Amy’s husband Patrick, the former Congressman and scion to the Kennedy family, received a board seat from that Company in February.  And Amy’s campaign has received thousands of dollars in campaign funds, including a donation of $5,600.00 from the company’s CEO.  Amy insistence on remaining silent and keeping Mr. Dominics’ blood money is simply shocking.  People’s lives are at stake.  We are in the middle of a pandemic, and there are people in New Jersey connected to this company who are dying.  I urge Amy to come clean and address these issues immediately.”