Republican governor candidate Bruce Rauner on Monday avoided questions about his ties to a troubled nursing home chain, while a federal trial in Florida began hearing evidence on claims that Rauner’s old private equity firm participated in a scheme to avoid liability for patient deaths.

At the trial in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, plaintiff attorneys played videotaped deposition testimony from an elderly graphic artist with no nursing home experience who expressed bewilderment over how he came to be listed as the sole shareholder of a company that bought nursing home chain Trans Healthcare Inc. as it was in financial freefall in 2006.

-snip-

The testimony of Saacks is a key part of a complicated trial centered on claims that Rauner’s GTCR participated in a fraudulent scheme to avoid liability for a string of deaths at nursing homes run by Trans Healthcare. Lawyers representing estates in related wrongful death lawsuits cases contend Saacks was a pawn and that New York-based business associates of GTCR created a shell company that shielded both firms from judgments topping $1 billion. The plaintiff attorneys contend most of the valuable assets of Trans Healthcare were shifted to a separate holding company while the liabilities were shifted to yet another firm that Saacks came to own.

-snip-

Controversy over the nursing homes has hung for months over the campaign of Rauner, who has long insisted his involvement with the chain was minimal. In February, he told the Tribune that he hadn’t had much to do with Trans Healthcare after serving on its board for about a year when GTCR first launched the chain in 1998.
However, the Tribune reported in Monday that a court document in the bankruptcy case indicates Rauner still served on the Trans Healthcare board four years after the inception of the chain. What’s more, plaintiff’s attorneys allege that other documents filed under seal in the case demonstrate that the nursing home company was run right up until the transaction with Saacks by an investment committee of GTCR partners that included Rauner.