Benjamin Healthcare sues former administrator for alleged theft, embezzlement

Leadership at the Edgar P. Benjamin Healthcare Center filed a civil suit against its former administrator, alleging he took millions of dollars from the center, putting it at risk of closure.

The civil complaint, filed in Suffolk Superior Court on March 4, alleged that Tony Francis, who previously served in the center’s top role, stole and embezzled, through a variety of schemes, over $3 million from the facility over his 10 years in charge.

Francis was ousted from his role leading the facility in April 2024 as part of a court-ordered receivership that came at the end of a community fight to keep Francis from shutting down the facility, which historically serves Boston’s communities of color.

The Edgar Benjamin Healthcare Center on Fisher Ave. in Mission Hill. BANNER PHOTO

Joseph Feaster, who serves as the court-appointed receiver of the facility, said that the suit aims to recapture funds from the center that were wrongfully appropriated and may have contributed to the financial instability that has plagued the center.

“I find it reprehensible that this great institution — which is venturing on its hundredth year — may have to have its demise as its result of poor administration that may have taken place,” said Feaster at a press conference announcing the complaint.

When Francis looked to close down the facility, last year, the financial state of the center was highlighted as a reason. In his initial announcement of the pending closure, in Feb. 2024, Francis said he was pursuing the move due to “insurmountable financial challenges” facing the organization.

In the months leading up to Francis’ announcement of his intention to shutter the Edgar Benjamin, staff at the facility repeatedly went without pay, when the center was unable to make payroll.

Multiple vendors who worked with the nursing home also weren’t paid, sometimes resulting in them refusing to provide their goods and services.

The suit suggests that Francis was at the center of the financial difficulties straining the Edgar Benjamin, alleging he, alongside two other staff members named as co-defendants, engaged in a “pattern of theft and embezzlement and self-dealing transactions” to take more than $3 million from the facility.

Joseph Messina (left), an attorney at the law firm Prince Lobel Tye, sits with Joseph Feaster, receiver at the Edgar Benjamin Healthcare Center at a press conference announcing a lawsuit against the center’s former administrator. PHOTO: AVERY BLEICHFELD/BAY STATE BANNER

Joseph Messina, an attorney from the firm Prince Lobel Tye, who is representing the Edgar Benjamin in the suit, said the evidence collected by staff at the Edgar Benjamin presented a “straightforward and obvious pattern.”

The complaint alleged that Francis used the Edgar Benjamin’s bank and investment accounts as “a personal piggy bank” — pulling more than $1.71 million for personal use — and that he regularly made personal purchases on his corporate credit card.

Those purchases — which allegedly included things like designer men’s clothing and suits, domestic and international airfare, lodging at various Ritz-Carlton hotels and resorts, baseball tickets, men’s and women’s jewelry, a specially designed racing bike, and a host of regular personal expenses like groceries, automobile expenses, and home furniture — totaled more than $655,000.

The complaint also alleged a host of other schemes, including orchestrating fraudulent bonuses and false vacation and sick leave pay; incurring thousands of dollars of charges at the gym Equinox — his employment agreement included the gym membership but not the more than $34,500 in other expenses charged; taking out a life insurance policy on his own life; and setting up a PayPal account ostensibly to collect donation for the facility and let people not affiliated with the facility rent parking space — the complaint alleges those funds never went to support the Edgar Benjamin.

Previous reporting indicated, based on minutes from meetings of the center’s board of directors as well as internal reimbursement records obtained by the Banner, that when the center was struggling to meet payroll, Francis offered to supply the facility with loans to pay staff. Those loans were made with the agreement that the center would repay the loans at 12% interest, which the board agreed to in January 2023.

Later, in 2023, according to the suit, Francis allegedly took out a $100,000 personal loan before using that money to make a $60,000 loan to Edgar Benjamin, also at 12% interest. The complaint alleged he pocketed that money and set up automatic payments from the Edgar Benjamin’s bank account to pay off the personal loan.

Francis could not be reached for comment. In an affidavit filed on April 2, during the 2024 proceedings that led to the facility’s receivership, Francis pushed back any financial wrongdoing or mismanagement, saying, “I vehemently deny that I have engaged in any misappropriation of funds or improper diversion of money to personal accounts.”

The funds that Francis allegedly took from the facility could have had a significant impact on the center and its operations, said Royal Bolling Jr., who previously served on the board of the Edgar Benjamin.

“Three million dollars is a lot of money. That could have had a real impact on our operations at the time,” said Bolling.

He said it could have paid for improvements, additional staff, and upgrades, things the facility was “always wrestling with,” Bolling said but had to defer due to a lack of funds.

The suit also alleged that Francis took steps to make sure his actions would go undetected, including manipulating the board of directors, firing auditors, and failing to file financial documentation to keep his actions hidden.

Bolling served on the board of directors throughout 2022 until he was voted off after he started asking questions about potential financial mismanagement.

According to the suit, the center went through three auditing firms between 2019 and the end of Francis’s tenure in 2024. When they asked for specific documentation, he fired them, the complaint alleged.

Bolling said that he noted the rapid turnover of auditors, but Francis always offered a reason why.

Allegations that Francis was at the root of the center’s financial difficulties aren’t new.

Leslie Joseph-Henderson, the Edgar Benjamin’s director of admissions who has worked at the facility for 24 years, said that when Francis announced his plans to close the center, the move came as a shock and staff and community members started their own informal investigation.

During a hearing in March 2023, run by the state’s Department of Public Health as part of the official closure process, staff and supporters of the facility pointed their fingers at Francis, who had been reported to make over $600,000 in his role of administrator in 2020.

“If we’re in such financial distress, and if we’re still able to pay a salary in excess of $625,000, maybe you are the financial distress,” Joseph-Henderson said at the hearing.

Now, with the information alleged in the suit, Jospeh-Henderson said she’s even more convinced.

“Something was wrong. He definitely was our financial burden,” she said. “And then, as you see all of these other things that were going on, you’re like, ‘How did you do it?’”

According to Form 990s — documentation filed by tax-exempt organizations with the Internal Revenue Service annually — Francis’s salary was about $156,2000 when he started. That number steadily increased over the years, reaching around $400,000 in the fiscal year ending in 2020.

In the fiscal year ending in 2020, it jumped to $625,988, and the next year, it was $ 628,592 before it dropped back to just under $400,000.

Francis previously said the pay bump was compensation for him for running a nursing home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the fiscal year ending in 2022, it dropped to just under $400,000, according to Form 990s.

But Bolling said he wondered if the pay increase was a way of getting more money from the federal government through its COVID-19-era Paycheck Protection Program, which provided low-interest loans to small businesses and nonprofits, to continue paying workers. Allocations to each organization were based on total payroll.

The complaint alleged that of the $3.2 million loan provided to the Edgar Benjamin under the program, Francis took unearned bonuses totaling over $483,000.

According to the suit, Francis allegedly also used $400,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program loan to create a Charles Schwab investment account for the facility. He allegedly transferred $160,000 from that sum to a personal investment account that he opened at the same time, supposedly to make a cryptocurrency investment on behalf of the facility — he claimed the facility, as a nonprofit, couldn’t make the investment.

According to Foundation Group, a company that supports 501(c)(3) organizations, nonprofit organizations can invest in cryptocurrency but tend not to invest much due to the volatility of the market and legal responsibilities to “prudently” invest.

Months later, Francis informed the board of directors that he had lost $100,000 in a “crypto exchange,” asking for an additional $20,000 to try to recoup some of the losses. No finds were ever returned.

Bolling said when he brought up his concerns about financial mismanagement, he was worried about the rise in Francis’ salary and wasn’t aware of any of the other alleged schemes but called them “devastating.”

“If the Benjamin had to close for legitimate financial reasons, that’s one thing — you can’t get blood from a stone — however, to have it fail because of fraudulent activities is even worse,” he said.

Whether Francis will face any criminal charges for his alleged behavior is currently unknown. Feaster said the Edgar Benjamin made the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office and the FBI aware of the allegations in September but said that neither organization had given any indication whether or not they were pursuing criminal charges.

“I was hopeful that those authorities might step in and take action,” Feaster said. “It hasn’t occurred yet.”

In a statement to the Banner, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office said that ensuring access to high-quality care at the facility remains a “top priority” for the office but declined to comment on any ongoing investigations related to the facility.

Since he entered his role of receiver in April 2024, Feaster has said he has been working to stabilize the center’s finances and iron out any financial “irregularities” from the prior administration.

Following Francis’s ousting under the receivership, Feaster made moves to change the bank with which the Edgar Benjamin worked. The signature of that Rockland Trust branch’s manager, Joana Angel, appears on most of the allegedly fraudulent withdrawals that Francis made. She also served on the center’s board of directors from late 2022 until shortly before the court ruled to put the center under receivership.

He also worked to reconnect with payroll company Automatic Data Processing, Inc. which had previously handled the center’s payroll until it pulled out due to non-payment. ADP resumed providing services to the Edgar Benjamin in July.

The center is involved with separate lawsuits against American Express over corporate credit cards with bills that the credit card company said weren’t paid. Feaster said the bills weren’t paid because the cards weren’t used on purchases to support the facility.

The filing of the lawsuit comes about a month before the receivership is set to be reexamined by the Suffolk Superior Court, following a decision in December from Justice Anthony Campo, who ruled to extend the receivership by another six months.

When it was initially implemented in April 2024, the receivership was officially slated to be in place for 90 days. At the end of June, at the request of Feaster and the guardians of two residents at the facility who initially sued for the receivership, the arrangement was extended until the end of the year.

Feaster said he doesn’t expect the lawsuit to impact that hearing, nor does he expect any money that might come to the facility in damages — which he acknowledged is no certainty — to significantly impact facility operations.

“These funds are not going to be the ones that sustain this organization,” he said.

That perspective is a shift from earlier interviews, where Feaster listed lawsuits to recoup lost or mishandled funds as one step to put the facility on the solid financial footing that would set it up for continued operations.

At that coming hearing, April 3, Feaster will be expected to present on potential paths forward for the Edgar Benjamin, as well as his sense of what potential the center has for long-term operations.

Whether it will be able to continue operations has been an open question since Feaster took charge. But since the receivership was announced, Feaster has said that his goal is to set the facility up to be able to make it to its hundredth anniversary in 2027.

That was a message he stood by at the press conference announcing the suit.

“My objective — what I said when I came here on April 4, [2024] — is I want to get the Benjamin to 100 years, and I’m still sticking to that,” Feaster said.

And if it’s feasible, Bolling said the center’s continued operations are of high value to the community for the center’s legacy and longstanding care and support for Boston’s Black communities.

He said the center set a tone and served as an example and important reflection of history.

“There is a need for the Benjamin — its spirit, its mission, its goal,” Boling said. “There really is a need for it.”