Joseph Schwartz, Skyline Healthcare: Fraud, Pardon, Parole

Joseph Schwartz is the former New Jersey businessman behind Skyline Healthcare, a nursing home chain that grew to roughly 100 facilities across 11 states before collapsing in 2018 amid neglect, unpaid bills, and financial fraud. He was convicted in federal court of a $38 million payroll tax scheme and separately in Arkansas of Medicaid fraud, but served only a few months in custody after President Donald Trump pardoned him in November 2025 and Arkansas paroled him weeks later. Families who won tens of millions of dollars in wrongful death judgments against him have collected nothing.

How Skyline Healthcare Grew and Collapsed

Schwartz, a former insurance broker, entered the nursing home business in the late 2000s. After selling a Florida-based insurance business for $22 million in 2015, he used the proceeds to expand rapidly, buying 17 homes that November and adding 64 more within a year.¹ By 2017, Skyline and its affiliates cared for about 15,000 residents across roughly 100 facilities in 11 states, including Arkansas, Massachusetts, Nebraska, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, Kansas, and Tennessee.² In Arkansas, the company at one point controlled nearly one in ten nursing home beds.

Schwartz ran the operation from a small office above a pizzeria in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey. His wife, Rosie, was a co-owner; his sons Michael and Louis were vice presidents. The business operated through a web of more than 190 limited liability companies.³

The collapse came fast. Starting in late 2017 and through 2018, Skyline stopped paying vendors, bounced checks, and missed payroll. More than 14 homes closed permanently, displacing over 900 residents, sometimes to locations hours away.¹⁴⁵ By mid-2018, Skyline announced it would dissolve and exit the industry.

Conditions Inside Skyline Facilities

State records and investigative reporting documented severe neglect across the chain. In Arkansas, state investigators found preventable falls, residents who were not bathed, and maggots in a resident’s personal medical equipment. Residents were reportedly served raw vegetables and boxed pizza.¹ At Ashton Place in Memphis, a resident died after being found lying in feces with maggots and gangrene in a leg whose dressing had not been changed for two days.

In Massachusetts, certified nursing assistant staffing on some shifts was cut from five to three. Disposable briefs were rationed to two per patient per shift, and former employees said residents were left to “languish in their own body waste.” Some staff bought toilet paper with their own money. At a New Jersey facility run by Schwartz’s son Louis, a resident with dementia wandered out of a locked unit into temperatures four degrees below zero and suffered severe frostbite.

The $38 Million Federal Payroll Tax Case

While running Skyline, Schwartz withheld employment taxes from workers’ paychecks and never sent the money to the IRS. Between October 2017 and May 2018, the unpaid amount topped $38 million.⁶ He also failed to file the required annual financial report for his employees’ 401(k) plan for 2018.

Schwartz was indicted in January 2022 on 22 federal counts. In November 2024, he pleaded guilty to two: willfully failing to pay over employment taxes and willfully failing to file a Form 5500. The other twenty were dismissed.⁷

On April 17, 2025, U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton sentenced Schwartz to 36 months in federal prison, three years of supervised release, a $100,000 fine, and $5 million in restitution. She had earlier rejected two plea deals that would have produced shorter terms.⁸ At sentencing, she noted the layers Schwartz used to obscure his wealth: “Not a single asset is in your name. Not one,” she said, remarking on the “number of layers and businesses and LLCs that were created.”² Federal prosecutors estimated Schwartz still controlled more than $50 million in assets, though none was held in his name, and said they had been unable to complete a forensic accounting of money that moved through more than 200 bank accounts.

The Arkansas Medicaid Fraud Conviction

Arkansas prosecuted Schwartz separately. The state alleged he submitted false cost reports to inflate Medicaid per diem reimbursement rates at eight nursing homes and withheld employee payroll taxes owed to the state.⁹

On April 30, 2025, Schwartz pleaded guilty to one count of Medicaid fraud (a Class B felony) and one count of attempted tax evasion (a Class C felony). He was sentenced to 12 months in the Arkansas Department of Corrections, 48 months of suspended sentence, a $2,000 fine, and $1,801,620.53 in restitution.

The Trump Pardon

In November 2025, after Schwartz had served roughly three months at a federal prison camp in Otisville, New York, President Trump granted him a full and unconditional pardon, wiping out the federal conviction.¹⁰ The White House called the case “an example of over prosecution,” said Schwartz had relied on a third party to manage tax filings, and described the three-year sentence as “exceptionally harmful to a 65-year-old man already in deteriorating health.”¹¹

The record cut against those points. Schwartz’s own guilty plea acknowledged personal responsibility for failing to remit the taxes. The $5 million in restitution he had paid was a fraction of the $38 million owed. And a judge had found no evidence he was unfit for prison on health grounds.²

Reporting later showed Schwartz paid nearly $1 million to right-wing lobbyists to press the White House, the Justice Department, and Congress for clemency.¹⁰ Far-right activist Laura Loomer promoted his case on social media, claiming Schwartz was not responsible for the tax violations, had paid back “every dime,” and that the prosecution was motivated by antisemitism. Court records contradicted each claim.² After the pardon, Schwartz attended a White House Hanukkah party and personally thanked Loomer.

The Arkansas Sentence and Rapid Parole

The federal pardon did not touch the Arkansas conviction. Attorney General Tim Griffin petitioned to make sure Schwartz served his 12-month state sentence, and on December 18, 2025, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Karen Whatley ordered him to report to the Ouachita River Correctional Unit by December 29. Judge Whatley rejected the defense argument that his three months of federal time should count toward the state sentence, ruling that the federal pardon “has no bearing on his obligations to the State.”¹¹

Schwartz reported on December 29, 2025. Three weeks later, on January 20, 2026, the Arkansas Post Prison Transfer Board granted him parole.¹² The board described the action as “nondiscretionary” for certain non-violent offenses and said it lacked authority to deny such transfers.¹³ His attorney, Kevin Marino, argued that once Schwartz was properly classified, his 90 days of federal prison time satisfied the state’s minimum-term requirements for parole eligibility.

Bob Edwards, an attorney representing families of deceased Skyline patients, said there was “no opportunity for anyone to speak” before the parole board and noted that Schwartz had not paid millions in court-ordered judgments to victims’ families. New Jersey’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman, Laurie Facciarossa Brewer, said the outcome showed that “buying your way out of trouble seems to be the American way.”¹²

Wrongful Death Judgments Families Can’t Collect

The clearest measure of what Skyline’s collapse cost is the wrongful death cases families have won on paper but never seen a dollar of.

Doris Coulson, a retired nurse, died in 2016 at Hillview Post Acute and Rehabilitation Center in Little Rock. She had been marked “nothing by mouth” because of Parkinson’s disease, but staff fed her solid food. She died of aspiration pneumonia; doctors found scrambled eggs in her lungs. In 2020, after Schwartz failed to appear in court, a judge awarded her family nearly $19 million. They have received nothing.¹⁴ Amanda Coulson, the daughter who pursued the case, has since died.

Zelma Grissom, another resident at Hillview, developed a severe pressure sore that became infected after staff failed to turn her regularly. Her family said she died of sepsis. In February 2023, a judge ordered Schwartz to pay the family $15.7 million. That judgment is also uncollected.² By the time both judgments landed, Schwartz had sold or given up his Arkansas properties, leaving no identifiable in-state assets to seize.

Attorneys for both families tried to depose Schwartz while he was in Arkansas state custody in early 2026, hoping to trace his finances and locate seizable assets. That chance vanished when the parole board released him after three weeks, before the depositions could be completed. Melissa Coulson, Doris’s daughter, said the pardon and quick release confirmed her sense that “justice is not applied equally.” LeVester Ivy, Zelma Grissom’s son, said his family sued because “we wanted nobody else to go through the things we had to go through.”

Other Ongoing Litigation and Fallout

A class action in federal court alleges that Schwartz and Skyline withheld more than $2 million in health insurance premiums from over 1,000 employees, deducting the money from paychecks but never paying the insurers, and leaving staff with unpaid medical bills.¹⁵ The plaintiffs have sought a $2.4 million default judgment, and the case was still active in early 2026.

One of the lobbyists Schwartz hired to secure the pardon, Joshua Nass, was arrested by the FBI in March 2026 and charged with attempted extortion in federal court in Brooklyn. Prosecutors alleged that Nass, who had been paid $100,000 for clemency work, tried to collect an additional $500,000 in unpaid fees by threatening Schwartz’s son. According to an FBI affidavit, Nass hired an informant to intimidate and physically assault the son, offering $15,000 for the assault. Nass was released on a $5 million bond and faces up to 20 years if convicted.¹⁶¹⁷

Schwartz’s son Louis, a former Skyline executive, continued running a New Jersey facility called Andover Subacute Rehabilitation Center II, later renamed Woodland Behavioral Health. In April 2020, during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, police responding to an anonymous tip discovered 17 bodies stacked in a small holding room. The federal government fined the facility $221,115 for regulatory noncompliance, and the New Jersey attorney general’s office opened an investigation.¹⁸ A proposed class action followed on behalf of families of deceased residents, alleging violations of nursing home laws and the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act.¹⁹

Where Things Stand

As of early 2026, Joseph Schwartz is free. He was released from Arkansas state prison on January 20, 2026, and remains under conditional supervision of the Arkansas Division of Community Correction. He has paid $400,000 toward his $1.8 million in Arkansas restitution and owes about $1.4 million more, due by April 2027.¹³ The Coulson and Grissom families still cannot collect a combined $34.7 million in wrongful death judgments, and prosecutors’ estimate that Schwartz controls more than $50 million in assets scattered across layers of LLCs has never been tested by a full forensic accounting.

1
NBC News. Nursing Home Chain Grows Too Fast, Collapses
2
ProPublica. Joseph Schwartz Trump Pardon Skyline Nursing Home Patients
3
NBC News. Owner of Failed Nursing Home Chain Accused of Tax Fraud Scheme
4
NorthJersey.com. Thousands of Nursing Home Patients Could Be Affected
5
Skilled Nursing News. Skyline Transitioning Away From Skilled Nursing
6
U.S. Department of Justice. Former Owner of Collapsed Nursing Home Empire Sentenced to 36 Months’ Imprisonment
7
Skilled Nursing News. Skyline’s Schwartz Sentenced to 3 Years in Nursing Home Tax Fraud Case
8
Center for Medicare Advocacy. Nursing Home Operators Sentenced
9
Arkansas Attorney General. New York Man Convicted of Medicaid Fraud and Tax Evasion Will Pay $1.8 Million in Restitution
10
Washington Post. Joseph Schwartz Trump Pardon Fraud
11
Arkansas Advocate. Nursing Home Owner Pardoned by Trump Ordered to Serve State Sentence
12
NJ.com. Troubled NJ Nursing Home Mogul Out of Prison Again
13
Arkansas Advocate. Nursing Home Owner Pardoned by Trump Released From Arkansas Prison
14
ProPublica. Trump Joseph Schwartz Pardon Lawsuit
15
NJ.com. Operators of Failed NJ-Based Nursing Home Company Stole From Employees, Suit Says
16
New York Times. Lobbyist in Trump Pardon Case Faces Extortion Charge
17
CNN. Joshua Nass Lobbyist Charged
18
NBC News. State Takes Over New Jersey Nursing Home With Bodies Stacked in Morgue
19
Law360. NJ Nursing Facilities Sued Over Dozens of COVID-19 Deaths