South Pasadena Convalescent Hospital allegedly recruited felons as patients

SOUTH PASADENA, Calif. -- South Pasadena's police chief says he'll ask for criminal charges to be filed against a nursing home where a patient walked away last year, doused herself with gasoline and set herself on fire.

Chief Arthur Miller said Wednesday that among other things, the former South Pasadena Convalescent Hospital recruited younger patients that included rapists, robbers and drug addicts.

He says police received 1,100 calls over a decade from the facility, which Miller says wasn't equipped or licensed to handle those types of patients.

It was decertified by regulators this year and has a new name and ownership.

Former owner Shlomo Rechnitz is being sued over November's death of the suicidal woman.