The owner of the bank used by American Crossroads also owns a nursing home that has been charged — by Kentucky Attorney General and Senate candidate Jack Conway — with failure to report the sexual abuse of one of its patients.
The Karl Rove-backed super PAC American Crossroads, as the Washington Post noted today, uses a small Kentucky bank for its financial dealings. Forcht Bank, based in Lexington, Ky., is owned by Terry Forcht, who also owns several other businesses, including a chain of nursing homes.
One of them, Hazard Nursing Home Inc., was charged in August with failure to report abuse after one if its 88-year-old female residents, who has Alzheimer’s, was allegedly sexually abused by a male resident. The home was allegedly told of the abuse in August 2009, but never reported it to authorities.
It was Conway, the Democratic opponent of Crossroads-backed Rand Paul, who brought the charges. The reports of abuse had been highly publicized in the Kentucky press months earlier.
Crossroads has spent $1.2 million on anti-Conway ads in Kentucky. Forcht — a major donor who, along with relatives, associates and employees has given $1.1 million to political campaigns since 2002 — has given $2,400 to Paul, and bundled more than $21,000 for the candidate from employees in just the last five days of June, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.
“It is my hope that today’s charges send a message to nursing home operators and administrators that they have an obligation to notify authorities if a resident is abused while in their care,” Conway said when announcing the charges.
The nursing home and its administrator, Sheila Noe, pleaded not guilty to the charges last month.
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