The mother of a mentally ill man who went missing for three weeks is suing the Brooklyn assisted living facility she says initially couldn’t even figure out where staffers lost him.
Wayne Anhalt, who lived at the Kings Adult Care Center, slipped away from a staffer and vanished Aug. 31 while being escorted to a routine medical appointment in Park Slope.
When his mother, Fredda Anhalt, 76, went to visit him the next day, she learned he’d gone missing.
“I didn’t know if he was alive or dead. He had no cell phone, no money. I was just beside myself,” she said.
Staffers told her that her 50-year-old son slipped out of the facility on Cropsey Ave., rather than being lost in Park Slope – about 6 miles away. It took six days for the center’s staff to correct their mistake, Anhalt said.
“This is a completely different ballpark – we’re talking a different precinct that should have took the report than the one that did,” the Sheepshead Bay woman said.
The critical error made the NYPD’s search for Wayne Anhalt more challenging, his mother charges in a suit to be filed Monday in Brooklyn Supreme Court. Kings Adult Care “exacerbated the situation by intentionally misleading the police by submitting a false report,” according to the suit, which alleges staffers didn’t disclose where Wayne Anhalt had been lost in an attempt to hide their mistake.
As the weeks passed by, Fredda Anhalt’s worries grew. “This fabrication caused plaintiffs considerable harm and anxiety, and caused the focus of the search efforts to be concentrated miles away from where Wayne was last seen,” according to the lawsuit to be filed by attorney Dennis Kelly.
Wayne Anhalt was found Sept. 21 in Brooklyn. He’d been living on the street. His mother was unclear as to who found him. He was taken to Coney Island Hospital, where he remains, receiving treatment for the three weeks he went without his medicine. His mother wants to make sure he doesn’t go back to Kings Adult Care Center.
The incident was the second time the facility had lost her son. The first time, he was missing for two days. Staffers found him at a McDonald’s near the center. Fredda Anhalt seeks an unspecified amount for the facility’s alleged negligence.
Wayne Anhalt wasn’t the only patient the facility has lost. In January, Peggy Ponton, 74, went missing for about 30 days, her daughter Cheryl Ann Ponton told the Daily News. Kings Adult Care Center operator Daniel Lifschutz did not return multiple requests for comment by phone and email.
