Rechnitz then submitted change-of-ownership applications seeking licenses to run those homes. Rather than approving or denying them, CalMatters found that the state Department of Public Health simply left his applications in “pending” status for years. Despite that, his companies were allowed to continue operating the homes.
In 2015, he applied for licenses for five Windsor nursing homes. The next year, the department denied the change of ownership applications, but again allowed Rechnitz’ companies to operate them.
In her scathing 2018 report, the state auditor Elaine Howle criticized the California Department of Public Health, saying weak oversight and licensing lapses increased risk to nursing home residents.
In an effort to address these issues, the Legislature passed a law in 2022 to close a loophole that had allowed nursing home operators to run facilities without first receiving licenses. The law required the Department of Public Health to look at an applicant’s track record over several years before granting a license.
But before that law took effect the following year, the Department of Public Health suddenly granted Rechnitz and his companies many of the licenses it had previously left pending or outright denied. The group includes nursing homes that were the focus of recent lawsuits, such as Country Villa Wilshire, the Los Angeles-area facility where a jury awarded $2.34 million after a woman allegedly fell repeatedly due to understaffing; Windsor Redding, where the 24 patients died during a COVID outbreak; and Windsor Healthcare Center of Oakland, where complaints filed in Alameda County Superior Court allege a woman was sexually assaulted twice and a man died after being given too much medication.
Ed Dudensing, a Sacramento-based attorney who specializes in elder abuse in nursing homes, is bringing the case in Alameda County Superior Court alleging that neglect and poor staffing allowed a fellow patient to rape 79-year-old Cheryl Doe on multiple occasions while she stayed at Windsor Healthcare Center of Oakland. He is also representing the family of 64-year-old Alando Williams in the lawsuit against the same facility alleging overmedication and wrongful death.
Dudensing has three other active cases against facilities affiliated with Rechnitz and his web of companies alleging neglect, abuse and wrongful death.
In one of them, 78-year-old Barbara Pendley allegedly died after suffering severe dehydration at North Point Healthcare & Wellness Centre in Fresno.
North Point was another facility that the state opted to grant Rechnitz and his companies the license for under the 2023 settlement agreement.
Rechnitz and his companies have filed legal responses denying allegations in all of these cases, several of which are scheduled to go to trial in the coming year.
“We’ve just got to keep fighting,” Dudensing said.
“There was a time when there was a lot of scrutiny and that’s obviously well-documented,” he said. “But he managed to slip through.”
Cassie Dunham, the previous deputy director of the Center for Health Care Quality for the California Department of Public Health, last year became chief executive and president of the California Association of Health Facilities, the industry’s lobbying group. Through a spokesperson, Dunham declined an interview for this story citing her involvement with the development of departmental policy during the time that the state granted Rechnitz the licenses.
Corey Egel, a spokesman for the industry group and himself a former spokesman for the Department of Public Health, said in a statement that the association “supports strong, transparent oversight but believes the system would benefit from clearer timelines, more consistent application of standards, and more efficient resolution of pending cases — so that regulatory goals and resident care priorities can both be met.”
Patient lawsuit at newly licensed nursing home
Among the facilities that Rechnitz’companies received a state license to run in 2023 was Country Villa Wilshire, an 81-bed Los Angeles nursing home.
According to a lawsuit against the facility, 84-year-old Betsy Jentz landed there in November 2020 after she fell and fractured her ribs and hip. Prior to her injuries, the complaint stated that Jentz had been in excellent health; her attorneys said she had run 27 marathons.
But during the next year, according to a plaintiff’s brief, Jentz fell at least 10 times. On some of these occasions, she hit her head, suffered a fractured and dislocated shoulder and a fractured pelvis. The complaint also described malnutrition and severe pressure ulcers. It attributed those injuries to neglect. In court filings, Rechnitz and his companies have denied all responsibility.
(Photo via Lanzone Morgan, LLP)
On the evening of Jan. 28, 2024, Jentz’ great nephew Derek Skylar Aud was preparing to testify in court the next morning. Then, according to court documents, he received an unexpected phone call.
The man on the other end of the line introduced himself as Shlomo Rechnitz, Aud later wrote in a declaration filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Over the course of more than an hour, Rechnitz allegedly told Aud that “things would get very nasty” for him and Jentz if Aud testified, the declaration said. Rechnitz allegedly said he would prolong the case for years and bring to light damaging information his private investigators had collected about Jentz.
He also said his private investigators had learned that Jentz loved basketball, and said she could receive courtside Lakers tickets “right next to LeBron James” if she agreed to a side deal, Aud told the court.
“Mr. Rechnitz then said ‘listen, I get it, we really fucked up and I’m accepting full responsibility, but I want the remedy or accountability to be on my terms and cut all these outrageous attorney’s fees out of the picture,’” Aud said in the declaration. “He also said ‘we fucked up and I accept responsibility, we were severely understaffed.’”
Rechnitz did not directly respond to these allegations in court, and the judge ultimately did not allow the jury to consider the phone call to Aud in making its decision.
Attorneys from Lanzone Morgan, a Long Beach law firm that specializes in nursing home abuse, represented Jentz and Aud in their case against Country Villa Wilshire. They said that the judge accepted defense attorneys’ argument that the call constituted “confidential settlement discussions” and did not allow the jury to hear testimony about it. Gittler & Berg and Ekpebe Law Group, the law firms that represented Rechnitz and his companies in the case, did not respond to CalMatters’ requests for comment. The jury’s $2.34 million verdict is now being appealed.
Lanzone Morgan also brought the case against Alameda Healthcare & Wellness that ended in the $7.6 million judgment in August. The case is in a post-trial phase in which the judge is determining how to apportion the liability among defendants.
Rockport Healthcare Services, the administrative services company for many of the homes, is also named in some of the lawsuits, including the one against Alameda Healthcare & Wellness. Rockport is owned by Steven Stroll, who has also served as Rechnitz’ accountant. Rockport has filed responses in court denying responsibility for the allegations.
Elizabeth Kim, an attorney with Lanzone Morgan, said she wants to see the Department of Public Health stop issuing licenses to Rechnitz and “other bad actors.”
“It’s shocking to me that he’s able to get licenses after he pretty much runs many of his facilities into the ground,” she said. She referred to an Aug. 22 trial in which Rechnitz acknowledged owning a private plane and having recently sold a home in Los Angeles for $23 million.
Her client, Aud, whose great aunt Jentz died in January 2025 a few months after the jury made its decision, wrote in his declaration to the court:
“I continue to feel uneasy about the calls and threats and I carry the fear of retaliation with me daily…I do live in fear that Mr. Rechnitz is now even more furious and that he will make good on his threats.”
CalMatters Data Reporter Erica Yee contributed to this story.
About the data
Besides court records, the data on Rechnitz-owned facilities in this story is based on state and federal databases. See full methodology and download the data.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
