JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- State officials investigating a fatal fire at a group home in Anderson acknowledged Wednesday that a gap in their regulatory oversight may have blinded them to red flags about the home's administration.  Regulators said Wednesday that they are considering whether to revoke the licenses of Joplin River of Life Ministries, the operator of the Anderson Guest House where 10 people died and two dozen were injured in a fire on Nov. 27.

The Anderson facility and three others run by Joplin River of Life Ministries are owned by Robert and LaVerne DuPont.  Although Laverne DuPont serves as executive director, Robert DuPont has told The Associated Press that he also was paid to help operate the business, even though a Medicare fraud scheme conviction in 2003 barred him from running long-term care facilities. Citing DuPont's public statements and other unspecified evidence, Attorney General Jay Nixon urged the Department of Health and Senior Services to start license revocation proceedings for all four of Joplin River of Life Ministries' facilities.  

On Wednesday, the departments of health and mental said they had found documents indicating some of their onsite inspectors knew Robert DuPont remained involved in business.  Those inspectors apparently did not know DuPont was blacklisted, and their notes were not shared with licensing officials.  The departments said in a joint news release that they are reviewing their operations "to ensure there is not a gap of information between inspectors in the field and licensing staff in the Jefferson City headquarters."

"Clearly, the governor is very concerned about this," said Brian Hauswirth, a spokesman for Gov. Matt Blunt.  "This gap obviously exists.  It should not exist."

Robert DuPont was removed as an officer of Joplin River of Life Ministries following his conviction.  Upon his release from federal prison, he returned to work, albeit not in his previous official role.  A Department of Mental Health document obtained by The AP shows "Bob DuPont" was present with one other administrator for a post-inspection briefing of the Joplin River of Life's Guest House I facility in Joplin on Sept. 24, 2004.

Robert DuPont's signature, under the heading of "facility representative," is on an exit interview report of Guest House III in Joplin conducted on April 21, 2005, by inspectors from the Division of Aging, which now is a part of the health department.  Among the inspectors' citations listed on the document was an unspecified fire safety violation.

Another document lists "Bob Du Pont" as one of three people from Joplin River of Life Ministries who provided information when mental health inspectors visited Guest House I on Sept. 21, 2006.  The health department said it also had found other documents bearing Robert DuPont's name but could not release them Wednesday.

The health department is responsible for issuing operating licenses to residential care facilities while the mental health department issues program licenses to serve mentally ill people and disabled people.  Inspectors look at the condition of the facilities, safety measures and the quality of health care and personal care provided to the residents.  But the inspectors were not instructed to check for whether facilities were being run by people barred from doing so, said health department spokeswoman Nanci Gonder and mental health department spokesman Bob Bax.

That task was left to separate licensing officials in the health department, who reviewed paperwork submitted to them by the facilities' operator but not the state inspectors' notes, Gonder said. Robert DuPont was not listed as an operator on any of the documents submitted as part of Joplin River of Life Ministries' license applications.

But if licensing officials had seen DuPont's name on an inspection report, "it definitely would have raised a red flag," Gonder said.  She said the health department now plans to improve its information sharing among inspectors and licensing staff.  When the Department of Mental Health issues a program license, it relies on the health department's operating license as verification that the facility isn't being operated illegally, Bax said.

"It's quite probable that the name Robert DuPont wouldn't mean anything" to the mental health inspectors, Bax said. "I think that points out one of the issues we need to address.  How we can provide some training to our staff so they can probe these type of issues and have access to that exclusion list?"

The attorney general's office, which has been conducting its own investigation into Robert DuPont's role, has "uncovered evidence that he had significant involvement in the operation of these homes," Nixon's spokesman, John Fougere, said Wednesday while declining to elaborate.

LaVerne DuPont said Joplin River of Life Ministries has not received any notice that officials are considering revoking its licenses.

"Of course, we're concerned," she told a reporter in a brief telephone interview on Wednesday.  But "we feel we did everything that was right and was legal, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens.  Meanwhile, we're just taking care of our residents, that's all we can do," LaVerne DuPont said.

The state fire marshal's office has not determined an exact cause for the fire at Anderson Guest House but it has said improperly spliced wiring in the attic may have been to blame.  Robert DuPont has cast doubt on that claim, suggesting a small mattress fire two days earlier may have left smoldering embers in the ceiling.