Jewish-owned geriatric home forces elderly residents to watch strippers
Photo: A wheelchair-bound woman suffering from partial dementia, 86-year-old Bernice Youngblood, is forced to watch a male stripper by the Jewish-owned nursing home in which she is a resident. Here she is being told by the staff to stuff a dollar bill down the male stripper’s underpants.
A nursing home is getting sued after the son of a resident discovered a photo of his 86-year-old mother with a male stripper. ● In the photo, Bernice Youngblood, a resident of East Neck Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in West Babylon, N.Y., is putting money in the man's underwear. "She was told by the staff that she was to put her money in his pants," said John Ray, the lawyer representing Youngblood and her son, Franklin. The elder Youngblood has dementia and was "humiliated and degraded" by the incident, Ray said in an interview with USA TODAY Network. The nursing home's lawyer says it was the residents' idea to bring in the stripper. Lawyer Howard Fensterman, representing East Neck, said a 16-member panel of residents voted to have the stripper perform and pay him $250, reports WCBS-TV in New York. "There is nothing inappropriate about it. These are adults," Fensterman said, according to WCBS. USA TODAY Network has requested comment from Fensterman. When reached by phone, a representative at the East Neck facility said "no comment." Ray said the New York attorney general's office is now looking into the stripper incident at the nursing home. The attorney general's office declined to comment. Bernice Youngblood has lived at East Neck for five years, and now her son is "taking steps to get her out of there," Ray said. The Youngbloods are seeking $10 million in punitive damages and an unspecified amount for Bernice Young's emotional distress, Ray said.