In 2019, Lori LaRock, the daughter of Albany County Nursing Home resident Roger Sanford, filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of her father against the Albany County Nursing Home and Nursing Home staff, for violations of the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act, the NY Nursing Home Bill of Rights, and medical malpractice.

Mr. Sanford was a resident at Albany County Nursing Home from August 2017 to March 1, 2018, while the home was under the direction of its Administrator Larry Slatky.  Over the course of his seven months at the Nursing Home, Mrs. LaRock often found Mr. Sanford unchanged, unfed, unwashed, unshaven, covered in his own urine and feces, and without his necessary medications.

On March 1, 2018, Mrs. LaRock found her father alone in his Nursing Home room clutching his chest, drenched in sweat, and gasping for air.   After Mrs. LaRock herself called 911, EMS rushed to the Nursing Home and found Mr. Sanford unresponsive and in obvious respiratory failure.  Mr. Sanford died two days later at Albany Medical Center.

On November 6, 2024, after over five years of litigation, a jury returned a unanimous verdict for Mrs. LaRock on all three claims.  Albany County Nursing Home was ordered to pay Mr. Sanford’s estate $1.5 million in damages for pain and suffering and $500,000 in loss of life damages, for a total verdict of $2 million.

“After a long awaited justice I finally got some closure for my father Roger Sanford’s neglectful death at Albany County Nursing Home AKA Shaker Place.  I would like to thank my expert lawyers Ilann Maazel and Hannah Brudney from Emery Celli Brinkerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP.  This day wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for them,” said Lori LaRock.

“For years, the Albany County Nursing Home was a house of horrors. We are gratified that the jury has finally held Albany County, this home, and its employees to account for the horrific suffering and premature death of Mr. Sanford,” said Ilann M. Maazel, lead counsel for Mrs. LaRock.

“We are pleased to see Albany County Nursing Home held accountable for its mistreatment of Mr. Sanford.  We expect nursing homes to take care of our vulnerable loved ones, not to let them struggle, suffer, and die alone,” said Hannah Brudney, who represented Mrs. LaRock.

Mrs. LaRock is represented by ECBAWM attorneys Ilann Maazel and Hannah Brudney, and paralegal, Dymond Wells.