The elderly residents of a Long Island nursing home saw their shuffleboards replaced by washboard abs when they were subjected to a low-rent Chippendale’s striptease in the facility’s rec room, a new lawsuit claims.
The son of one resident, 85-year-old Bernice Youngblood, was shocked when he showed up for a visit and found a picture of his mom stuffing dollar bills — which are supposed to be locked away in her commissary account — into a dancer’s briefs.
The image also showed several of Youngblood’s fellow residents at the East Neck Nursing Center in West Babylon looking on with a mix of shock and delight as the dancers bumped and ground for their amusement.
Youngblood’s family immediately expressed their outrage to the staff — but were ignored, according to the suit.
“Plaintiff Bernice Youngblood was placed in apprehension of imminent, offensive, physical harm, as she was confused and bewildered as to why a muscular, almost nude man, was approaching her and placing his body and limbs, over [her],” the suit states.
Her family attorneys, John Ray and Vesselin Mitev, state in the complaint that her son, Franklin Youngblood, found the offensive photograph among her belongings during a January visit.
The irate son confronted a nurse, but the staffer lunged at him and tried to snatch the picture away, the suit states.
A nurse later told another of the victim’s sons that the strip show was an “entertainment event” for the patients and was done in “good faith,” according to the suit.
“Hiring male stippers to perform for the defendant’s nursing-home patients was a serial occurrence,” the suit claims.
“Bernice Youngblood has lived 85 years as a traditional Baptist, hard-working, lady . . . And now she has been defiled,” Ray said.
Youngblood’s family also asked why his mother was holding dollar bills in her hand when her cash was supposed to be kept under lock and key in a commissary account — but were again blown off, the papers state.
The “vile” incident was done “all for the perverse pleasure and enjoyment of the Defendant’s staff,” the suit claims.
Youngblood’s attorneys argue she “lacks the mental and physical capacity” to protect herself.
They weren’t helpless victims — they were Golden Girls gone wild!
The elderly residents of a Long Island nursing home decided on their own to throw a spring-break-style male-stripper party in the facility’s rec room — and the old ladies loved every last bump and grind, a lawyer for the facility claimed Tuesday.
A leadership group of more than a dozen residents at the East Neck Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in West Babylon approved the bawdy bacchanal by laying out $250 of their own funds to hire the dirty dancer, the attorney said.
Youngblood, 85, center, a resident of the East Neck Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, with her family during a news conference outside the facility on Tuesday.Photo: AP
“The home has an activities panel of 16 people — residents — who actually voted to have this event,” said Howard Fensterman, the nursing home’s attorney. “They welcomed it, and it looks like they had a good time.”
Just how good a time could be seen in the faces of the residents captured in a now-infamous photo of the 2012 event, first reported by The Post on Tuesday, in which one of the geriatric residents stuffs cash into the briefs of a Chippendales-style dancer.
The son of that woman, Bernice Youngblood, 86, was so outraged after he found the sleazy snapshot that he filed a lawsuit against the nursing home claiming him mom was traumatized by the strip show.
Franklin Youngblood insists that the staff organized the beefcake extravaganza for their own “perverse pleasure.” On Tuesday, he rolled his elderly mom before news cameras to insist that she was degraded by the home. With a shaky voice, she said she suffered “shame” from being part of the stripper hoedown.
“None of you all would want this to happen to your parents,” her son insisted. “I grabbed this picture, pulled it out — the minute I seen the picture I just exploded.”
The Youngblood family, however, may have trouble explaining why Franklin’s wife attended the event and was photographed sitting next to Bernice.
Attorney Howard Fensterman points out the exclusive report in Tuesday’s edition of The Post.Photo: AP
“If Mr. Youngblood wants to sue anybody, he should be suing his own wife,” said Fensterman.
Franklin Youngblood dismissed his wife’s strip-show cameo as irrelevant.
“Regardless of whoever’s in that picture — it’s wrong,” he said.
His attorney, John Ray, added: “This is not a laughing matter. What occurred here it was not a Gen X bachelorette party. These are elderly Americans who live here in dignity.”
Despite the home’s claims that the residents demanded the strip show, the state Attorney General’s Office is looking into the case, a source told The Post Tuesday.
(via New York Post)
