The former superintendent of the Soldiers’ Home at Holyoke, who is facing elder neglect charges for his role in a coronavirus outbreak there that killed at least 76 veterans, is scheduled to change his plea at a hearing in Hampden Superior Court on Tuesday, one week before his trial is set to begin, court records show.
The hearing comes after Bennett Walsh, through his attorneys, filed a memorandum last week requesting that each charge be continued without a finding for a three-month probationary period, in exchange for Walsh’s admission that there are sufficient facts to support a guilty verdict on each count, according to court documents.
Walsh’s attorneys wrote in the filing that Walsh has complied with the conditions of his pre-trial release and has been working in the private sector since he resigned from the soldiers’ home in 2020. Walsh, a 25-year Marine Corps veteran, was appointed to run the facility by the Soldiers’ Home board of trustees and was sworn in by then-governor Charlie Baker in 2016, giving him his first civilian job as an adult, according to court records.
“Mr. Walsh has been totally honest about his lack of training or experience for a job as the head of a long-term care nursing facility,” his attorneys wrote. “He had never been a supervisor of a civilian work force. He was especially lacking in any training in medical specialties like infection control. Yet, the Board appointed him and Governor Baker swore him in.”
The attorney general’s office, which is prosecuting the case, said it will ask the court to sentence Walsh to one year of home confinement with three years of probation. The court’s order would also prohibit Walsh from working in a nursing home, having any contact with the families of residents who died in the outbreak, and being present in the Soldiers’ Home without permission from the superintendent.
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The coronavirus outbreak at the facility in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic was exacerbated by what then-attorney general and now Governor Maura Healey called “tragic and deadly” decision-making by management at the home, which included a decision on March 27, 2020, to combine two dementia units in response to alleged staffing shortages.
Walsh and Dr. David Clinton, the former medical director for the Soldiers’ Home, now known as the Veterans Home at Holyoke, were indicted in September 2020 on charges of elder neglect and permitting bodily injury involving five veterans after they chose to combine the two units, allegedly putting residents at risk.
In November 2022, the charges were thrown out by Hampden Superior Court Judge Edward J. McDonough, who said there was no “reasonably trustworthy evidence” that their actions harmed veterans. Two months later, lawyers from the attorney general’s office asked the Supreme Judicial Court to restore the criminal charges, which the high court approved in a 5-2 ruling last April.
Walsh’s change-of-plea hearing is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. His trial is scheduled for April 2.
Walsh’s attorney, William Bennett, declined to comment Monday night.
Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com.