"No, absolutely not," Ritchie replied. He'd been talking with people in the state health department and the office of the state ombudsman for long-term care, he added, and they said they had received complaints about Meridian as well.
"From my point of view, as far as I'm concerned, and any records and anything that I've seen, and the track record that I know about Meridian, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy," Ritchie concluded.
"That's good to know," Corsentino said. "I'm glad I placed this call."
This conversation was intrinsic to the suit Meridian filed against Ritchie in early 1995, claiming that he had defamed the company as part of a "conspiracy." Meridian accused Ritchie of slander, interference with contractual relations and civil conspiracy and asked for an injunction that would prevent him from "communicating to any third person any false and inaccurate statements" about the company.
The lawsuit also asked for an unspecified amount of damages because of the "irreparable harm" Meridian had suffered as a result of Ritchie's comments.
One day in 1996, a lawyer arrived at Ritchie's apartment to take his deposition in the case. She introduced herself as an attorney with Moye, Giles, O'Keefe, Vermeire & Gorrell, the firm that represented Meridian. Her name was Trish Nagel.
"At that time, she in no way identified herself as an owner or party to Meridian nursing homes," says Ritchie.
Meridian's attorneys also subpoenaed several staffers in the ombudsman's office and even tried unsuccessfully to obtain copies of the confidential complaints against the company that had been filed with that office.
"To come to court and say I set out to destroy somebody is ridiculous," says Ritchie. "I was just one individual. They chased this horse all over the state and discovered there weren't any other horses."
Ritchie didn't hire a lawyer to fight the suit. Nor did he show up in court to defend himself. Because he failed to appear, Meridian was granted a default judgment in 1997 by Adams County District Court Judge Harlan Bockman, who also issued an injunction prohibiting Ritchie from making "false and inaccurate" statements about Meridian.
Trish Nagel says that the company was justified in filing a suit against Ritchie. "While Meridian respects the right of individuals to voice opinions, Meridian also believes in the right to conduct its business without unjustified interference," she wrote in response to inquiries from Westword.
Jeffrey Pond, Meridian's attorney, says the company is satisfied with the injunction and has no plans to demand money from Ritchie.
Not that Meridian would be able to collect anything if it tried. "What are they going to take?" asks Ritchie, who has no assets. "They can't attach my government check. If they'd done their homework, they'd know I was living on disability."
"I have no knowledge of his financial circumstances," says Pond, who accompanied Nagel to Ritchie's apartment to conduct the deposition. "By all appearances, he's not a person of means."
Judging from the size of the Nagels' political campaign donations, they are definitely people of means.
In 1996 the Nagels donated a whopping $340,000 to the national Republican Party and Republican candidates. Trish Nagel sent a personal check for $100,000 to the Republican National Committee in October of that year.
Here in Colorado, the Nagels are among the biggest funders of Republican political campaigns; their generosity is almost legendary at the Colorado legislature.
They certainly did their bit for Colorado's governor-elect. After voters passed Amendment 15 in 1996, limiting campaign contributions from individuals to $1,000 per election year, Bill Owens moved quickly to stock his campaign chest before the law took effect on January 1, 1997. He set up a new fundraising committee that collected $64,584 between Christmas and New Year's Eve 1996, with Ralph and Trish Nagel contributing over a third of that. Each of the Nagels donated $10,000 to the fund, and their company, Legan Inc. --the name for Meridian's parent firm is Nagel spelled backward--gave another $3,200 to the Owens campaign.
Owens returned the favor after the 1998 election, when he appointed a transition team that included heavy representation from the nursing-home industry. Besides Nagel, the transition committee for health and welfare included Arlene Miles, director of the Colorado Health Care Association, which represents Colorado nursing homes.
The committee eventually recommended the appointment of longtime Republican activist Jane Norton as director of the state health department, a recommendation that Owens followed. Norton, the wife of former U.S. Attorney Mike Norton, was Jack Kemp's state presidential campaign director in 1988 and served as regional director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Reagan and Bush administrations.
In her statement to Westword, Nagel said she was chosen for the health-care transition team because of her years of experience. "I was chosen to serve on this committee because of my more than twenty years as a professional working with doctors, hospitals, regulators, lawmakers, administrators, nursing homes and other health- care businesses," Nagel wrote. "Over that time, I have been asked by Democrats and Republicans, at the state and federal level, to share my perspective. Therefore there would be no reason to question my appointment or that of other members of the committee to share our expertise."
