INDEPENDENCE — More than three years after hundreds of former patients of disgraced nursing home owner Bob Dean Jr. were left in a Tangipahoa Parish warehouse, payouts have begun for nearly 450 people who filed claims in a class-action lawsuit against Dean, The Advocate reported Monday.Payments will range between $10,000 and $50,000 for 428 patients — or their surviving family members — who were part of the botched evacuation efforts during Hurricane Ida in 2021. Seven of Dean's nursing homes were evacuated to the Tangipahoa Parish warehouse that had less-than-ideal ideal conditions.In 2023, the government said that in the five years before Ida, Dean funneled money that should have been used to prepare an evacuation site for nursing home residents to his personal bank accounts. When Ida approached, the homes and the 843 residents in the path of the storm weren't ready. More than a dozen residents died.Those who filed claims will split $8.2 million of Dean's insurance proceeds.The checks will be sent out on Saturday, The Advocate reported from Jefferson Parish court filings.The case stalled multiple times, with more than 25% of the former patients dying during the wait, The Advocate reported.The pot of money for the class-action suit was dwindled by about $3 million after attorney's fees and administrative costs were taken out, The Advocate reported.Dean received three years of probation after pleading no contest to eight counts of cruelty to the infirmed, two counts of obstruction of justice and five counts of Medicaid fraud.Permalink| Comments