The Carlyle Group purchased LifeCare Hospitals in August 2005 and Synagro Technologies in April 2007. The private equity underwriter (PEU) promotes its operational expertise in managing affiliates for maximum sale value. It charges affiliates 2% per year for management services.
Synagro Technologies bribed Monica Conyers, the wife of Rep. John Conyers, in November 2007. Monica plead guilty to receiving two payments from Synagro in return for her vote on their sewage sludge and incinerator contract. Synagro or their representatives are yet to be charged.
The Carlyle Group and its joint venture energy investment, Riverstone Holdings, paid a combined $50 million to the New York Attorney General. The money settled their legal "pay to play" liability regarding New York pension fund investment placements. The bribes, or what look like bribes, seem to multiply.
LifeCare Hospitals lost 24 patients in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. While HCA helicoptered patients from their dead New Orleans facilities, Tenet and LifeCare let patients and staff swelter in toxic gumbo for five hellish days. Carlyle's innovative defense in wrongful death law suits involves blaming the feds. They suggest patients became wards of the government as soon as FEMA evacuation teams set up in New Orleans. How are people miles away from an acute care hospital clinically responsible for patients?
None of the above facts made the White House Lessons Learned report on Hurricane Katrina. No Carlyle Group's LifeCare and their 24 deaths, no Tenet's 10 patient deaths in Memorial Medical Center, no mention of the hospital facility with the highest death toll. Thirty four patients died in Memorial. The political connections are disturbing.
During the Bush years, the Carlyle Group was portrayed as a key part of the Bush cabal. It turns out they're a bipartisan PEU.
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