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The Day of the Mothers

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Records Withheld — Clock Stopped

Tempie Bartell / Nadine’s Nest Adult Foster Home

withheld the care records of Russell H. Bingaman for

475Days
:
14Hours
:
00Minutes
:
00Seconds

The clock started April 15, 2025, when Russell's family asked Nadine's Nest Adult Foster Home for his care records. It stopped at 2:00 PM on August 3, 2026, when the records were finally produced -- 475 days. We fought beside Russell's widow the whole way, and we helped her get them. The family is reviewing them now.

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Article card: a chained and padlocked care home door posted with No Access and All Visitation Suspended notices, beside filed federal court complaints and a stat panel of allegations stated in the federal filings -- lockout period July-September 2024, visitation-restriction surcharge $1,000 per month -- AI-generated editorial illustration
The Bingaman CaseLatest

A Widow's Two Federal Lawsuits Say the Lockout Was Approved, Then Billed

Filed in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon: a civil rights case against two state employees, a records manager, a care home operator, and her company, and a racketeering case against a hospice, two law firms, and the lawyer the widow once paid to help her.

Patricia Bingaman of Imbler filed two federal lawsuits in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon in late July: a civil rights action alleging a sixty-seven-day lockout that state employees authorized, and a racketeering action against a hospice, two law firms, and the lawyer she once paid to help her. No defendant has answered yet, and everything the complaints say is, at this stage, allegation.

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The Records War
The front porch and door of Nadine's Nest adult foster home, seen from the street

The Porch

She was locked out, escorted off by police and billed for visiting. Then she came back for his records.

On July 30, Patty Bingaman drove to Nadine's Nest and waited on the porch while a caregiver's calls to the operator went unanswered, then left without seeing a page of her late husband's care records. The rule she was invoking is one sentence long: Oregon requires an adult foster home to keep a resident's records "readily available" to their representative, and Patty has been asking for 474 days. Sixteen days before she stood on that porch, the state had inspected the home over her complaint about those very records and certified it in compliance.

The Records War
Article card: a clawfoot bathtub with a towel over its rim, an off-hook telephone handset, and a paper folder stamped Federal Contractor Confidential -- AI-generated editorial illustration

What Two Months of Quiet Actually Bought

A bathtub, a phone call, and a federal contractor's paper trail

The records fights weren't the only thing happening. A family got a working bathtub. A congressional inquiry into a CMS hospice contractor turned up matching handwriting on both sides of a quality review.

Institutional Accountability
A ballot drop box on a rural Eastern Oregon road at golden hour, mail ballots resting on a fence rail -- AI-generated editorial illustration

Before You Vote

The Facts About the Swapped Newspaper, the Quiet Lawsuit, and Matt Scarfo's Third Term

Ballots reach Union County mailboxes this week. The county filed a lawsuit to strike voter-approved term limits, won uncontested, and now Commissioner Matt Scarfo is running for a third term. Here is what the court records, the ethics filings, and Scarfo's own campaign interview actually say when compared to the documentary record. A motion to set aside the judgment was denied by the Union County Circuit Court on May 12, 2026 (see Corrections). The Oregon Government Ethics Commission has voted 7-0 to open an investigation into Scarfo for using his official position for personal financial gain and for failing to declare an actual conflict of interest before voting.

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