WAUCHULA, Fla. — A Central Florida mother says her trust in medical facilities has been broken after she says she witnessed staff physically mistreating her son.

• Mom put son in care of neurologic rehab facility in Hardee County
• When she visited 2 weeks later, she was shocked at his condition
• In 2012, Allstate Insurance sued FINR for $7.6 million for fraud

Samantha Valentin placed her son, Jadon, at the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation late last year.

FINR, as the facility is commonly known, specializes in brain injury rehabilitation and support living services and is the second largest employer in Hardee County, about two hours southwest of Orlando.

Jadon, who is autistic and nonverbal, occasionally needs to be restrained because of aggressive behavior. He also has a history of harming himself.

"FINR was the only place that accepted him for his current level of behavior," Valentin said.

To give Jadon a chance to adjust, Valentin says she waited two weeks before visiting him.

But when she first saw him again, she was horrified at his condition.

"My son had marks on him, he had bruises, his elbows were scraped, his feet were covered in ant bites. None of his clothes had been washed," Valentin said. "I don’t even have words to describe how that moment felt — especially because I’m looking at my son, and he can’t tell me what happened and what didn’t happen."

After calling both FINR’s CEO and the Florida Department of Children and Families about her concerns, Jadon's well-being improved.

But several weeks later, things had changed.

"A staff member had my son lying down on the bed in a prone position. So he was face down with his arms back, and he was pushing his back into his bed. He could have suffocated my son," Valentin said.

According to the Professional Crisis Management Association, a so-called "prone restraint" is not dangerous if performed properly. If done improperly, however, a person can suffocate.

Fearing for her son’s safety, Valentin removed Jadon from the facility and brought him home.

We sent FINR CEO Ray Stitchette a certified letter and called him several times about Valentin’s concerns. After receiving no response, we drove to FINR to speak with Stitchette. He declined to answer our questions and asked us to leave.

We also contacted DCF, but because child protective investigations are confidential, the agency declined to comment on Jadon’s case.

It did send us a list of complaints involving FINR during the past 21 years. Of 1,163 incidents, case workers verified 90 complaints, the most recent being in October 2019. Searching through court records, we found four lawsuits against FINR for wrongful death, negligence, and suggestion of death. All four lawsuits were settled, most recently as last year.

The family of Michael Lieux sued for wrongful death following the U.S. Marine’s death in 1998.

"They killed my son," Una Marshall said by phone from her home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. "My son was in the rehab, and he went to the bathroom, and they wanted to look in his luggage, and they had a fight with him. They tried to say he fell on himself, but the lady who worked with him said they killed him."

After Lieux's death in 1998, a civil jury awarded his parents $5 million. The Medical Examiner’s report states the cause of death as "positional asphyxia due to restraint." The manner of death was ruled a homicide.

Lieux's attorney told us the state didn’t file criminal charges against FINR because law enforcement investigators had already closed the case. 

"I’m still angry at the facility, and I don’t want to go to Florida anymore, because I went down there every month for a long time," Marshall said.

In 2012, Allstate Insurance sued FINR for $7.6 million for fraud. The lawsuit claimed "rather than providing the promised rehabilitative care... FINR did nothing more than warehouse patients with no meaningful treatment or clinical progress."

While DCF investigates complaints, Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration is responsible for licensing and inspecting the state’s health care facilities, including FINR.

Since January 2017, there have been 14 complaints resulting in investigation. Eleven of those complaints had substantiated findings. An AHCA report from 2018 says the facility failed to have "sufficient staff with knowledge of the clients care needs" and staff were "ignoring clients," while a 2019 report said a client harmed themselves after the facility failed to implement "continuous... levels of supervision."

An AHCA spokesman declined to speak with us on the record but sent a statement.

"We frequently monitor facilities in accordance with Florida Law to assure patient safety is protected, and move swiftly to take regulatory action, as necessary, against facilities for issues of non-compliance. In accordance with Florida Law, FINR was allowed the opportunity to correct the regulatory violations you cited. All deficiencies were corrected in a timely manner."

But Valentin says that's not good enough.

Since Jadon has come home, she says he isn’t the same.

The state’s Program Administrator of Risk Management and Patient Safety, Sean Massey, resigned January 10. He had been in that role since 2017. According to an AHCA spokesman, the program administrator didn’t provide a reason for his resignation, but they think he left to go back to school.

That position remains vacant.