Wisconsin GOP Senate candidate faces lawsuit over elder abuse and wrongful death accusations

Eric Hovde, the 2024 Republican Senate candidate in Wisconsin, continues to stir controversy.

Hovde is challenging incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) this November, and he drew fire in recent days for suggesting widespread voter fraud occurred in Wisconsin nursing homes during the 2020 general election, and that nursing home residents should not be allowed to vote in elections.

Hovde, endorsed by former President Donald Trump earlier this month, told Fox News Radio’s Guy Benson that seniors living in retirement homes have a five- to six-month-long life expectancy and that “almost nobody in a nursing home is at a point to vote.”

Hovde has since walked back those claims; however, now the Senate candidate is facing a new controversy surrounding nursing home residents. The New York Times reported Saturday morning that Sunwest, the bank where Hovde currently serves as CEO, was named as a co-defendant last month in a lawsuit alleging elder abuse, negligence, and wrongful death at a retirement home owned by the bank.

The suit itself alleges that negligence on the part of staff at a senior living facility acquired by Sunwest in 2021 accounted for the 2022 death of 94-year-old Betty Nottoli. Nottoli’s daughter, Patricia Chiuppi, filed the lawsuit.

A spokesman for Hovde’s campaign, Ben Voelkel, has said the plaintiff filing the suit has “no basis for this claim.”

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“The lawsuit fails to identify the circumstances surrounding the incident,” Voelkel said in a statement. “It admits that they are unknown.”

“Sunwest Bank was a member of an L.L.C. that came into ownership of the facility through a foreclosure. A third party unrelated to Sunwest and the L.L.C. managed the facility,” he added. “The lawsuit is meritless, which may be why the filing attorney has not actually served Sunwest and has stopped communicating with the bank.”