MCR Health Fires CEO Facing Felony Charge In Pinellas County: Report

MANATEE COUNTY, FL — MCR Health fired its president and CEO, who is facing a felony charge in Pinellas County.

The board of directors for the company, formerly called Manatee County Rural Health, voted unanimously to remove Patrick Carnegie from his roles as of Nov. 4, the Bradenton Herald reported.

Dr. Melvin Price was named interim CEO of MCR. The company operates 48 health care centers and 19 pharmacies throughout Florida, including Manatee, Sarasota, DeSoto, Pasco and Hardee counties.

Carnegie was initially arrested and charged with felony burglary in June 2021 for an incident that happened in April of that year.

• Also Read: MCR Health President, CEO Charged After Domestic Incident: Police

Court records show that on Sept. 21 of this year the charge was changed to trespassing at a construction site, a third-degree felony.

In the document filed to amend his charge, the state attorney’s office said that on April 10, 2021, Carnegie “without being authorized, licensed or invited willfully entered upon or remain in the property of (the victim), a legally posted construction site one acre or less in area…as to which notice against entering or remaining on said property was given by posting.”

In October, Carnegie also entered a Pre-Trial Intervention Program related to the charge, waiving his rights to a speedy trial, records show. According to Florida statutes, the program includes counseling, education, supervision, and medical and psychological treatment.

At the time of his arrest in 2021, Yolanda Fernandez, a spokesperson for the St. Petersburg Police Department, told Patch that the charges against Carnegie stemmed from a domestic incident in the city, when police were called to the home of “a woman he’d had an on-again, off-again relationship with.”

The warrant was issued by the state attorney’s office in Pinellas County, Fernandez said, adding that it started as an SPPD case. “Initially, a probable cause pick-up was put out on Mr. Carnegie.”

Carnegie showed up at his former partner’s St. Petersburg home around 4 a.m. one morning in April “and pushed his way in,” Fernandez said. “There was some kind of altercation between them. He left and she called the police.”

The burglary charge was filed because he pushed his way into the woman’s house, she added.

There was “a little bit of confusion about his arrest” because it started as an SPPD case with a warrant written by the state attorney’s office and an arrest in Manatee County, Fernandez said.