The troubled Benjamin Healthcare Center, which fell into a court-appointed receivership after falling behind on payroll and facing closure, has served as a nursing and rehabilitation facility for nearly 100 years and is now a stopover for former politicians with troubled pasts.
When a Suffolk Superior Court judge appointed Joseph Feaster as receiver of the Boston facility in April, the prominent lawyer immediately turned to an old friend, former state Sen. Diane Wilkerson, for help.
The former lawmaker has taken over the title of secretary or executive assistant to Fester and now has an office in the hillside complex between New England Baptist Hospital and the Jamaica Plain Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
It’s the latest job for Wilkerson, once a rising star in Boston politics, a Roxbury Democrat who became the first Black woman elected to the state Senate in 1992 and was frequently discussed as a mayoral candidate. But that was before she pleaded guilty in the late 1990s to failing to pay federal income taxes, and more than a decade later she spent more than two years in prison for accepting more than $20,000 in bribes, a corruption that federal prosecutors described as “systematic and pervasive.”
She attempted to return to politics in 2022, but finished third in the race for her former state Senate seat, whose boundaries include the Benjamin River.
In a letter to the court this summer, Mr. Feaster filed an update on the receivership, which is set to run through the end of the year, including the hiring of a new receiver to replace one who was fired for alleged mismanagement after plotting to shut down the facilities. Mr. Wilkerson’s role was mentioned but not named.
Fester told the Commonwealth Beacon he reached out to Wilkerson, whom he’s known since working for Gov. Michael Dukakis, because she’s familiar with Benjamin. Wilkerson also has a personal connection to the business, and her 89-year-old mother is a resident at the business. “She’s been able to do the work and work around what I need to do so I don’t have to be there every day and do what I need to do as a recipient,” Fester said.
He added that he was not barred from dealing with the Benjamins’ financial affairs because “she served her time in prison.” If anyone had expressed concerns to him, “it went away like a rainstorm,” he said. “I haven’t heard any comments about Diane Wilkerson since I was first appointed trustee.”
Wilkerson said she is “temporarily” employed by Benjamin as she looks to support Vice President Kamala Harris’ voter turnout efforts and work with developers on local projects. “My job is really focused on facilitating the distribution and communication of information about facilities, finances, history, outstanding accounts, tax returns,” Wilkerson said in an interview this week. This includes interacting with the IRS and other federal and state regulators who oversee the nursing home industry, she added.
State officials paid more than $500,000 in advances to Benjamin as he tried to get out of a bind under a former trustee who denied any wrongdoing. The state also agreed to pay an advance to cover the costs of the trustee and accountant’s offices.
Wilkerson said she typically charges clients $150 to $200 an hour for her services. Her hourly rate in Benjamin is “well under $100,” she said, adding that she doesn’t charge overtime because she works long hours at the facilities she’s trying to save. “I’m in the red,” she said.
Cape Race kicks off
In April, first-time state Rep. Chris Flanagan was hit with thousands of dollars in fines and a scathing report from state campaign finance officials, who said he “delayed and obstructed” an investigation into a shady scheme to send fake campaign mailings to voters in his Cape Cod district in the 2022 election.
At the time, Flanagan appeared to sidestep an even bigger potential problem: an election opponent. The report was released just before the filing deadline for candidates to appear on the ballot in this year’s election.
That all changed last week when a Republican candidate motivated by Flanagan’s fraudulent practices garnered enough roll-up votes in the Republican primary to win in November’s election: Gerald “Jerry” O’Connell, 59, a former Marine who has worked as a truck driver, bricklayer and stay-at-home dad.
The Barnstable 1st District has gone back and forth between the two parties, with Republican Tim Whelan, a former state trooper and Marine like O’Connell, previously holding the district that covers three mid-Cape communities: Brewster, Dennis and Yarmouth.
On the fundraising front, O’Connell has raised $5,300 since July, while Flanagan has struggled to raise money since his campaign finance violations came to light in April, and has raised just over $5,000 out of pocket, leaving him with more than $8,500 in cash on hand.
The district’s purple hues, combined with Flanagan’s campaign finance violations, mean a Republican victory is possible, but O’Connell, a supporter of Donald Trump, will have to sell himself in a district that supports President Biden by about 60 percent to 40 percent.
O’Connell said in an interview that he is urging Democrats to split their votes — to cast a blue vote on the rest of the ballot but fill in the circle next to their own name.
“When I knock on doors, I’m not trying to sell Donald Trump,” O’Connell said. “I’m trying to find common ground with local people.”
