NY State cites Psychiatric center. Clinic is fined, forced to stop taking new patients

The psychiatric center in upstate Brewster where accused murderer Evan Marshall of Glen Cove was once treated has been fined $80,000 and ordered not to accept new patients after regulators discovered several violations.

The state Office of Mental Health placed Supervised Lifestyles Residential, or SLS, under a temporary "cease-and-desist" order after visits at the center Nov. 6 and 7.

"Although the final report of this review has not yet been finalized ..., the results of the visit indicated serious regulatory violations," according to a Nov. 17 letter addressed to Alfred Bergman, co-chairman and chief executive, and Joseph Santoro, co-chairman and chief operating officer.

Violations include the lack of criminal background checks for staff, use of manual restraints and required jail-like jumpsuits in a community service program that humiliated some patients, according to the Office of Mental Health letter.

Spokesman Gerald McKelvey said yesterday the center has requested an agency hearing to contest the allegations. He also said most of the violations stemmed from insufficient record-keeping and some had been voluntarily addressed before the visits.

Marshall, 31, was a patient at SLS for at least four months, and police said he had been granted a leave to visit his mother in Glen Cove when he beheaded and dismembered Denice Fox, 57. McKelvey couldn't comment on Marshall, citing privacy concerns.

SLS, a private center founded in 1987 that provides a dorm-like setting for 140 patients a year, has never had its license suspended, state regulators said.

The order stopping admissions remains "until an acceptable plan of corrective action has been reviewed and accepted," said Jill Daniels, a spokeswoman for the Office of Mental Health.

Such a plan has been sent to the agency, said McKelvey, who added, "We will appeal this matter."

The violations prompted some mental-health professionals to remind care-seekers to thoroughly research facilities like SLS before signing up.

"In some cases, people are receiving poor treatment," said Carol Smaldino, a Port Washington therapist, who has a patient who once lived at SLS for about four months.

Smaldino's patient of six years said the reported violations only skim the surface of problems at SLS. The client, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said some patients were unnecessarily strong-armed and some were given so-called "med holidays," which meant they were taken off their medication.

McKelvey said psychiatrists routinely stop medication for some patients when the treatment has been deemed ineffective or when prescriptions are based on the wrong diagnosis.

Lance, a 31-year-old resident of upstate Mahopac with a personality disorder who spoke on the condition that only his first name be used, said SLS turned his life around and he wrote a letter recently to the Office of Mental Health praising the center after receiving treatment there from 2001-03.

"I never witnessed anyone being abused," he said. "I witnessed a girl take a kitchen knife and plunge it into her arm repeatedly. Obviously, there's restraint needed there."

What the state said

Some of the violations outlined by the state at Supervised Lifestyles Residential, a rehabilitation center in upstate Brewster. SLS spokesman Gerald McKelvey said the allegations are being contested.

State officials questioned the number of times SLS used manual restraints, pointing to at least 25 instances in the past 10 months. SLS initially reported to state regulators in September that restraints were used three times in 12 months, officials said.

SLS had not performed criminal background checks on staff hired since April 2005, state officials said. SLS said in October the center, which has 60 to 70 employees, performed the necessary background checks. No criminal records turned up for the six employees checked so far, SLS said.

State officials said a program at the center required some patients to perform community service while wearing jumpsuits, humiliating them. SLS said use of the jumpsuits ended in August.