Content Warning: This episode contains detailed descriptions of nursing home neglect, including accounts of residents found in unsanitary conditions. Listener discretion is advised.

You're about to hear the story of a man who built a nursing home empire from a tiny office above a pizza parlor in New Jersey.

His name is Joseph Schwartz. At its peak, his company Skyline Healthcare owned or operated more than 100 facilities across eleven states. What happened inside those facilities (the rationed diapers, the unpaid bills, the maggots, the residents left without food or clean water) is one of the cruelest stories of corporate neglect you will hear this year.

When Schwartz finally got convicted of defrauding the government out of $38 million, he started making calls.

In this episode, we'll follow the money from a nursing home empire to a presidential pardon, and then to a violent extortion plot that ended with an FBI arrest in Midtown Manhattan.

EPISODE RESOURCES & SHOW NOTES

ARTICLES & INVESTIGATIONS

Brookings Register: Wave of SD nursing home closures hitting hardest in rural small towns URL: https://www.brookingsregister.com/article/wave-of-sd-nursing-home-closures-hitting-hardest-in-rural-small-towns

Arkansas Advocate: Nursing home owner pardoned by Trump ordered to serve state sentence URL: https://arkansasadvocate.com

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (2019): Firm's fall risked care in homes for frail URL: https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2019/apr/28/firm-s-fall-risked-care-homes-frail-201/

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (2025): Judge orders former nursing home magnate to prison URL: https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2025/dec/18/arkansas-judge-orders-former-nursing-home-magnate/

The Washington Post: Joseph Schwartz Trump Pardon Fraud (Coverage of the $960k lobbying effort) URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/11/23/joseph-schwartz-trump-pardon-fraud/

The New York Times: Pardon Industry Offers Rich Offenders a Path to Trump

The New York Times: Trump Pardons: Lobbyist Charged in Extortion Attempt

Philadelphia Coverage: Skyline Healthcare: Scenes from the collapse of a nursing-home operator by Harold Brubaker

BROADCAST COVERAGE

NBC Nightly News: Nursing Home Chain Collapses Amid Allegation Of Unpaid Bills, Poor Care

KELOLAND News: Skyline Healthcare owner facing federal charges

PRIMARY SOURCE DOCUMENTS

State Petition: Attorney General Tim Griffin's Petition to force Schwartz to serve his state sentence URL: https://arkansasadvocate.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Arkansas-v-Schwartz-12022025-Motion.pdf

State Civil Lawsuit: State of South Dakota ex rel. Jason Ravnsborg v. Joseph Schwartz, et al. (Case No. 32CIV22-000010)

Federal Criminal Complaint: U.S. v. Joshua Nass (Attempted extortion affidavit, Case No. 26-MJ-54)

Lobbying Disclosures: Federal filings for Joshua Nass (Merkava Strategies Corporation) and Jack Burkman (J.M. Burkman & Associates)

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