Two recent deaths at Chicago-area nursing homes highlight a growing problem not just of poor care, nursing home advocates say, but of difficulty in holding those responsible accountable.
In both cases, families reluctantly put their elderly mothers with dementia into nursing homes. Both cases ended tragically when the mothers died with severe infections due to bedsores.
The cases resulted in legal judgments against the nursing homes, but plaintiffs said neither has been paid. The nursing homes were managed by Infinity Healthcare Management of Illinois LLC and other businesses that are part of the portfolio of Strawberry Fields REIT, a real estate investment fund trust that takes rent from nursing homes that its affiliates also operate.
There were 30 other lawsuits consolidated between 2019 and 2025 involving companies associated with Strawberry Fields CEO Moishe Gubin, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers in many of the cases, Levin & Perconti. The total amount the lawyers say is owed in these cases is $4 million.
Gubin and Strawberry Fields could not immediately be reached for comment. Affected families held a news conference Tuesday morning in downtown Chicago to demand accountability.
The cases highlight common problems, advocates say, involving nursing homes that are run by a confusing web of shell corporations that avoid financial liability and increasingly are under- or uninsured, leaving them unable to compensate victims.
“It was a slap in the face,” said Leslie Adams, whose mother, Shirley Adams, died after going into a nursing home. “The negligence of this was unbelievable. She had bedsores, surgeries and a colostomy. We thought a nursing home would be a place that would care for loved ones.”
Shirley Adams was able to walk with a cane before she went into Lakeview Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in 2021. Her family said they brought her there because she had dementia and needed care around the clock, which they could no longer provide.
But when they visited her at the facility, they were surprised to find she was confined to a wheelchair, and later to bed. She developed painful bedsores that went to the bone, and which forced her to undergo multiple surgeries to remove infected tissue. She died at age 79 in 2023. The case resulted in a record $12 million judgment plus $5 million in attorney fees and interest.
Similarly, Barbara Marchinska went into Oak Lawn Respiratory and Rehabilitation Center in 2021 with dementia. Her family worked full time and could not continue to care for her.
Within a few months, her granddaughter Kasia Robberechts said, she suffered advanced pressure sores that caused a sepsis infection. She contracted COVID-19 and acute hypoxemic respiratory failure. She entered the nursing home in July and was dead by December. She was 83.
“It was shocking,” Robberechts said. “You send your loved one where you have trust, and that trust was broken really fast in the worst possible way. It was unethical, because this was preventable.”
Strawberry Fields oversees more than 140 long-term care properties in 10 states, and pays dividends to its share holders. Yet the Lakeview nursing home had an insurance policy of just $250,000 per occurrence, part of which went to its legal costs, attorneys said.
Speaking recently on a podcast called LegendsNLeaders, Gubin, who started as a bookkeeper in a nursing home, is also chairman of OptimumBank, which he said lends to his nursing home tenants. He boasted of making billions of dollars in sales, and described his business model, saying, “… the money is made on the tenant side.”
“We do business the right way,” Gubin said. “We have good reputations which, which is what matters, right? We’re gonna die someday, and we want to be able to be known that we were decent people. We took care of people…”
Lawyers who advocate for nursing home residents called for amending the Illinois Nursing Home Care Act, saying that state law should be changed to require better insurance for nursing homes and to require greater transparency in their ownership.
“Why is an unscrupulous business owner like Moishe Gubin allowed to continue to operate business in Illinois— and worse, businesses that target the most vulnerable citizens of our society — is a good question for our state officials,” said Margaret Battersby Black, managing partner at Levin & Perconti.
The state did pass a nursing home reform law in 2022, which tied increased funding to increased staffing, and aimed at greater disclosure of nursing home ownership, but advocates say more needs to be done.
Illinois has long had problems with nursing home care. Last year. U.S. News and World Report ranked Illinois 47th out of 50 states for nursing home quality.
Nursing home trade groups like the Healthcare Council of Illinois have called for increased Medicaid payments to sustain struggling long-term care facilities and improve staffing and care.
Since COVID-19, the council reported, 31 skilled nursing facilities in Illinois have closed, and the state’s largest independent operator filed for bankruptcy in 2024.
