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Every time Ginger and Jim Wright visited their son Derek, who has autism, at Lakeview NeuroRehabilitation Center in New Hampshire, he would repeat, over and over, “No Lakeview. No Lakeview.”
Lakeview NeuroRehabilitation Center originally was part of a national chain of brain injury rehab centers called New Medico, owned by Charles Brennick of Boston. An FBI investigation in the 1990s led to the eventual collapse of New Medico, but the Brennicks’ neurorehab business lived on.
In this interactive timeline, we highlight the milestones and meet the characters who played a pivotal role over 40 years of a private neurorehabilitation system’s rise and demise.
New Hampshire Public Radio reporter Jack Rodolico spent a year investigating allegations of abuse and fraud at Lakeview NeuroRehabilitation Center. Along the way, he encountered a crusading mother who made secret recordings of state regulators in a desperate attempt to get someone to help her daughter.
This month on Reveal, we team up with New Hampshire Public Radio reporter Jack Rodolico to unveil 40 years of alleged abuse and neglect of people with disabilities at specialty rehab centers across the U.S., an industry that thrives on public dollars with little oversight.
In the late 1990s, Lakeview NeuroRehabilitation Center patient Amy Mueller, then a teenager, had a romantic relationship with at least one staff member. Mueller’s family later sued the facility for billing for services that never were provided and putting her in danger.
An investigation with New Hampshire Public Radio finds a history of mistreatment and abuse at a neurorehabilitation center and uncovers its connections to a network of similar facilities across the country – and to owners who have evaded accountability for 40 years.