Former state senator defends position at nursing home in receivership 

DIANNE WILKERSON, the former state senator who now works at a financially struggling Boston nursing home, defended her salary after a Superior Court judge raised concerns. 

A year ago, after the Benjamin Healthcare Center was placed into receivership to avoid closing the long-term care facility, the court-appointed receiver hired Wilkerson as his executive assistant. 

But her role at the facility, located in Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood, has come under scrutiny over the last several months. Christopher Belezos, the judge overseeing the receivership case, asked for more details about her salary information, citing testimony she had given in response to “allegations of nepotism and self-dealing.” 

The judge’s concerns, outlined in an April 22 filing, came days after a court hearing in which Wilkerson and Joseph Feaster, the court-appointed receiver, took the stand to deny allegations of financial mismanagement and nepotism. Separately, the nursing home’s administrator, Delicia Mark, also complained that Feaster and Wilkerson created a hostile work environment, an allegation which Feaster categorically denied. 

Feaster has known Wilkerson since their days on Beacon Hill in the Dukakis administration. Wilkerson, once considered a rising political star, resigned in 2008 from the state Senate seat she’d held for 15 years after she was indicted on federal corruption charges. Asked about her hiring and her history last year, Feaster said Wilkerson had “served her time” between 2011 and 2013 in prison. 

Noting that Wilkerson testified under the pains and penalty of perjury, Judge Belezos pointed to Wilkerson’s statement that she earned $82 an hour and worked 90 hours per week. Last September, Wilkerson told CommonWealth Beacon that she worked “probably 70 to 80 hours a week.” 

“If such testimony is accurate, it raises significant concerns as to the rate of remuneration being paid to Ms. Wilkerson by an institution in receivership” and projected to lose roughly $4.4 million in 2025, Judge Belezos wrote in his filing, asking for tax forms and her most recent paystubs. 

Wilkerson filed a May 3 affidavit in response saying she wanted to “clarify” her testimony. Her testimony of “90 hours” was meant to be in reference to 90 hours over a two-week pay period, and she worked an average of 45 to 50 hours per week, she wrote. She added that as a salaried employee, she is not paid overtime.  

She also submitted a lengthy list of her job responsibilities, including negotiating contracts with vendors, working with a bookkeeper to collect money owed to the Benjamin, and serving as a point of contact for information and document requests from banks, state. and federal officials looking into the facility’s former administrator’s financial activity before receivership. 

Her paystub and other salary information were filed under seal for privacy reasons. 

But Belezos, in a response he filed this week, ripped Wilkerson for what she said in her affidavit. “Ms. Wilkerson’s attempt to unilaterally re-frame, and amplify, her own testimony is rejected,” he wrote. 

He added that it is “entirely improper for a witness to engage in a post hearing effort to influence” a judge’s assessment of the credibility of testimony delivered under oath.

He called her assertion on the stand that she works 90 hours per week “very clear, albeit not very credible.”

In her affidavit, Wilkerson reiterated her denials of nepotism and self-dealing. The allegations were sparked by an anonymous letter from employees pointing to the hiring of Wilkerson relatives to work in the facility, as well as a snow removal contract given to a company run by two of her sons. When she was on the stand last month, Wilkerson said she was not involved in the hiring of her relatives, and the hiring of the relatives was not a conflict of interest. She defended the hiring of her sons’ snow removal company, citing a “flash snowstorm” during the Benjamin’s 2024 Christmas party. 

The questions about her role were raised as Feaster, the receiver, is talking to companies interested in taking over the 164-bed facility, which will turn 100 years old in 2027. It is the only nursing home in the Northeast serving predominantly Black residents. 

The terms and conditions of any takeover include keeping the Benjamin name and ensuring the real estate that the building sits on remains dedicated to the facility. There is no mortgage on the facility, according to Feaster. 

Proposals were originally due May 8, but Feaster has extended it to June 5. 

Any sale requires approvals from the state’s highest court, the state attorney general, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. 

The next court date is set for May 15 in Suffolk Superior Court. 

This post was updated with the judge’s response to Wilkerson’s affidavit.