Elder abuse and amputated 🍆, TJ Cox linked firms awash in new controversy
Of all the stories on TJ Cox’s shady business dealings, the headline on this one is certainly the most eyebrow raising.
A new report details alarming allegations that TJ Cox allowed a business partner to run one of his senior care facilities despite the partner being barred “by California social services officials from involvement in elder or child care facilities” for more than 75 admitted instances  of mistreatment including:
- Locking a dementia patient out on a patio
- Leaving seniors to cry after they fell
- Multiple patients suffering bedsores
- And an incident requiring the “amputation of a male patient’s penis after it became gangrenous due to lack of treatment on a rash.”
Just about the 400,000th example why TJ Cox is unfit to serve.
Abuse and an amputated penis: Questions arise over Cox’s elder care partner
San Joaquin Valley Sun
Alex Tavlian
5/14/2020
Two years after a senior living facility partially-owned by Rep. TJ Cox (D–Fresno) felt the glare of scrutiny, new questions have emerged about another one of Cox’s health care-related enterprises.
At the center of it: concerns over Cox’s partnership with a woman who was legally barred by California social services officials from involvement in elder or child care facilities due to her own past malfeasance.
The company, one in a litany of businesses listed on Cox’s amended statement of economic interests, is known as Sequoia Care Management, Inc.
…
A lengthy investigation into the Fresno-based facility found a bevy of issues, resulting in 75 substantive allegations against the couple and their adult son, Chris Childers, for failing to provide adequate care and utilizing untrained staff.
The allegations included one Fresno Cares patient with dementia being locked on a patio while others left to cry after sustaining a fall and multiple patients suffering from bed sores.
But perhaps the most grotesque incident at Fresno Cares was the amputation of a male patient’s penis after it became gangrenous due to lack of treatment on a rash.
Facing another set of criminal charges, the Childerses signed a stipulation admitting to the 75 allegations in exchange for a dropping of criminal charges.
The Department of Social Services stipulation forced the Childers family to surrender their license to operate and barred the three Childerses from holding a care license, being a member of a board related to providing elder or child care services, or having any contact with any clients of elder or child-care centers in California for the span of 10 years.
…
Three years after pleading no contest in her Nevada child abuse case, Childers was named secretary and a director of Cox’s Sequoia Care Management, Inc.
Despite claims by Cox’s staff that the firm “never operated,” the move raises questions as to whether Childers violated her non-prosecution agreement with California’s Department of Social Services, which included a 10-year prohibition serving on a corporate board for elder or child care centers.
Cox’s history of senior care facilities independent of Childers became a raging issue in his 2018 campaign for Congress.
Television ads from former Rep. David Valadao (R–Hanford) played up incidents of alleged abuse at Bella Vista Memory Care, a north Fresno facility owned by Cox’s Sierra Meadows Senior Living, LLC.
The ads focused particularly on one incident wherein a male patient at Bella Vista had his right eye removed after being twice attacked by his roommate.