Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins has announced that the agency will fire an employee who is accused of abusing a Marine veteran at a state-run veterans home in New York, where he also worked.
Collins wrote on social media that the Department of Veterans Affairs “will immediately initiate removal proceedings for this employee.” He added in the Sunday post that the “incident didn’t happen at a VA facility.”
News 12 in New York first reported on video footage that purportedly showed Matthew Cox, an aide at a state-operated veterans home in Montrose, New York, repeatedly hitting a veteran who served in the Gulf War.
Collins’ announcement came in response to another social media post by John Tiegen, a former CIA security contractor who responded to the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya. On Sunday, Tiegen shared the News 12 story, which reported that although Cox had been fired by New York’s state health department, he was still employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Prior to Collins’ statement on social media, the department had removed Cox from all duties dealing with patient care, VA spokesperson Quinn Slaven told Task & Purpose on Monday.
No information was immediately available about Cox’s role at the VA.
Task & Purpose was unable to reach Cox for comment on Monday.
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State-run veterans homes are completely separate entities from the VA, which is a cabinet-level department within the federal government. The New York State Department of Health operates four veterans homes, including the New York State Veterans Home at Montrose, where Cox had worked.
Angela Sangro told News 12 that her husband, Albert O’Toole, suffered a brain injury from an explosion during the Gulf War and later developed Alzheimer’s disease. While he did well at a VA facility, his condition worsened after he was transferred to the state-run veterans home, she said.
Sangro also noticed that her husband started showing signs of bruises and other injuries, and that prompted her to secretly place a camera inside his room, she told the television news channel. The camera captured video that allegedly shows Cox physically abusing her husband, including throwing him into a chair and hitting him with a broom.
Marissa Crary, a New York health department spokesperson, provided Task & Purpose with the following statement in response to questions on the matter: “Maintaining a safe environment for the residents and workers at this facility is our top priority. As soon as we became aware of this incident, the staff member was immediately put on leave, terminated after a review of the incident, and is facing criminal charges.”
Cox faces a felony charge of “endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person in the first degree,” court records show.
Susan Cacace, the district attorney for Westchester County, told Task & Purpose that her office moved quickly to arrest and arraign Cox after being made aware of the allegations against him.
“The conduct that is visible on the video footage published by News12 is deeply disturbing and cannot be allowed to recur,” Cacace said in a statement to Task & Purpose. “Those who make the painstaking decision to place a family member in the care of a veteran’s hospital expect that their loved one will be treated with the dignity befitting a military veteran. Sadly, in this case, it appears that standard of care was not met.”
