Steward alleges former CEO Ralph de la Torre and execs plundered the hospital chain of hundreds of millions of dollars

It paints a deeply unflattering portrait of de la Torre, who was once lauded as a health care visionary but became, to many, the personification of corporate greed. The three other former Steward officials — Michael Callum, James Karam, and Sanjay Shetty — are accused of enabling de la Torre’s self-dealing and profiting handsomely in turn.

“Through their greed and bad faith misconduct, [these former insiders] operated Steward with the aim of enriching themselves at the expense of the Company, its creditors, and the patients and communities that Steward served,” the complaint states. “These insiders pilfered Steward’s assets for their own material gain, while leaving the Company and its hospitals perpetually undercapitalized and insolvent.”

The claims are an extraordinary aboutface for the company, and pits what’s left of the corporate entity against de la Torre, its high-profile former leader who founded the company in Boston in 2010. The allegations, levied over 68 pages, echo the Globe Spotlight Team’s past reporting into the now-bankrupt health care company.

Once the nation’s largest private, for-profit hospital chain, Steward operated around a dozen hospitals in Massachusetts and had a sprawling international footprint. Its success was due in part to de la Torre’s pursuit of rapid growth, and was aided by an Alabama real estate investment trust that financed the expansion by buying the chain’s properties and then leasing them back to Steward.

But the model proved unsustainable, plunging Steward into dire financial straits as its hospitals, saddled with onerous rents, suffered from shortages in staffing and equipment and racked up millions in unpaid bills to suppliers. Those failures, according to Spotlight’s reporting, could be traced to at least 15 deaths.

After filing for bankruptcy last year, Steward sold off six of its hospitals in Massachusetts and closed the remaining two.

The recent court filing alleges some board members were in on a scheme to enrich themselves as the company foundered, while other members were largely unaware of the chain’s financial straits or the individual payouts. The filing confirms the Spotlight Team’s finding that de la Torre and other executives in 2021 took a $111 million dividend despite knowing that Steward was insolvent as far back as 2016.

De la Torre personally received $81.5 million of that payout, the complaint alleges, using the money to purchase a $30 million superyacht and a $4.3 million private ranch outside Dallas.

The payment was billed as “advisable and in the best interests of the Company,” according to a confidential Steward document obtained by the Globe. The document was signed by de la Torre, who, according to the bankruptcy filing, kept the payout from review or opposition, including circumventing in-house counsel and other senior leadership.

De la Torre’s choice to “unfreeze distributions so that he could take a substantial dividend for himself and other insiders … was catastrophic to [Steward’s] finances,“ according to the complaint.

In a released statement, a spokesperson for de la Torre on Thursday said he “disputes the allegations of wrongdoing and will vigorously defend himself against them.”

The court filing also takes aim at several former executives who benefited from the 2021 dividend: Callum, who as vice president for physician services at Steward served as de la Torre’s lieutenant, received $10.3 million. Shetty, then-president of Steward Health Care System and now president of a unit of health insurer Humana, got $1.8 million. Karam, a prominent Rhode Island real estate developer who remains a member of Steward’s board, received $728,456.

And Steward Health Care International, the international arm of Steward that’s majority-owned by de la Torre, received $4.3 million of the dividend payout.

Shortly after the dividend, according to the complaint, de la Torre orchestrated another self-dealing scheme: selling assets related to Steward’s Medicare Advantage business to a company called CareMax.

Steward, through its physicians organization, received $60.5 million in cash, while the bulk of the proceeds — almost $134 million in stock of CareMax — ultimately went to an obscure holding company majority-owned by de la Torre, Callum, and Karam. (Shetty also held membership interest.) In essence, de la Torre and a handful of board members “sold valuable” assets and “diverted the proceeds to themselves” while the company was insolvent, Steward said in its filing. It’s unclear whether they cashed out these shares.

CareMax, which operated health centers largely for Medicare recipients, filed for bankruptcy in February.

Callum declined to comment Thursday, adding he wasn’t aware of the filing. Karam and Shetty could not be reached.

The complaint also supports past Spotlight revelations of other ways de la Torre dipped into Steward’s dwindling bank accounts to serve his own personal ends.

Over the years, Steward provided more than $14.5 million for planes operated by de la Torre, his family members, and their friends, according to the filing. The Globe had previously reported Steward’s two company jets flew more than 200 flights in 2022 and 2023 to or from destinations that were at least 100 miles from any known Steward hospitals or business offices. In the summer of 2023, for example, de la Torre and Callum jetted to Jamaica, where the CEO had his newly renovated superyacht.

Steward also funded de la Torre’s $2.5 million dollar donation in 2023 to the Greenhill School, a private, K-12 institution in suburban Dallas that de la Torre’s children attended, according to the filing.

The court filing describes de la Torre as ravenous and eager to expand Steward’s footprint at all costs. Steward made a name purchasing dilapidated hospitals in low-income communities, including five South Florida hospitals from Tenet Healthcare Corporation in 2021 at more than $200 million above the valuation price. The decision, Steward asserted, was based primarily on de la Torre’s desire to own several hospitals in the region “rather than on any independent financial analysis.” And it further severely depleted the company’s coffers. No Steward executives or board members allegedly questioned de la Torre’s strategy.

The complaint also names Tenet Healthcare Corporation as a defendant. The company did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Steward’s other board members around this time — Carlos Hernandez, Sister Vimala Vadakumpadan, retired Army lieutenant general H.R. McMaster, and former House speaker John Boehner — also either declined or did not respond to requests for comment.

De la Torre remains at the epicenter of a federal probe focused on potential fraud and embezzlement and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Globe has reported. Multiple sources have told the Globe there is an ongoing grand jury investigation. A spokesperson for US Attorney Leah Foley said the office could not comment, or even confirm the existence of a probe.

De la Torre also remains in contempt of US Congress for ignoring a subpoena to testify last fall.

Steward’s recent bankruptcy filing is part of an effort to claw back funds to repay its remaining creditors. The company, which has also sued vendors and business partners, is leaning on the prospective litigation to try to settle its debts.

Despite objections from several parties, many of whom have questioned the likelihood Steward can recoup sufficient funds through lawsuits, the bankruptcy judge in Texas approved the company’s efforts to pursue the litigation.

Hanna Krueger can be reached at [email protected] or via the encrypted messaging app Signal at hsk.13. Elizabeth Koh can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at koh.20. Follow her @elizabethrkoh.