Toby has some interesting campaign donors

From the Observer:

Queens State Senator Toby Stavisky—the ranking member of the Committee on Higher Education—has raked in tens of thousands of dollars in donations from for-profit colleges, one of tied to a bribery scandal that took down an assemblyman from her home borough in 2009.

Stavisky has taken more than $23,000 in contributions from Forest Hills’ Plaza College, its owners and its affiliates since 2002—$18,500 of it since federal agents arrested the late Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio on corruption charges related to the school in 2008. One of the affiliates that gave to Stavisky, Collegiate Management Associates—which U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara labeled a “shell company”—served as a conduit for Plaza College provost Charles Callahan III to funnel $170,350 in bribes to Seminerio in exchange for legislation favorable to the for-profit institution.

Bharara’s criminal complaint against Seminerio also alleged the assemblyman unsuccessfully sought to get Callahan III appointed to the state Board of Regents, which controls New York’s public schools, and assisted him in navigating various agencies.

Collegiate Management Associates gave Stavisky $1,000 in August 2014. She took another grand from the college itself that October, $1,000 again in 2015, and reported taking the same amount from the school in her filings last month.

McLaughlin sprung from the pokey

From the Queens Chronicle:

Brian McLaughlin is a free man.

The former Flushing assemblyman, who served six years for racketeering and other charges, was released Friday from Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania.

He will remain on supervised release, under supervision of the Department of Probation for three years. Probation will also be monitoring his employment as part of his release, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

McLaughlin, 62, was sentenced to a 10-year term, but in May a federal judge reduced the sentence as a reward for his cooperation with the government.

According to court papers, prosecutors said that his help, by wearing wires and taping conversations, assisted the government in putting away state Sen. Carl Kruger of Brooklyn, Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio of Ozone Park and David Rosen, CEO of the MediSys Health Network, which operates Flushing and Jamaica hospitals.

The judge also applauded McLaughlin for working as a counselor in prison for drug addicts and alcoholics.

Medisys CEO convicted of bribery

From the NY Times:

A former hospital chief executive was convicted on Monday in a far-reaching scheme to pay bribes to three New York State legislators in return for beneficial treatment toward his health care organization, MediSys Health Network.

The former executive, David P. Rosen, 63, was the first defendant to be tried as part of a federal investigation announced in March that has been seen as a stunning snapshot of the continuing problem of pervasive corruption in Albany.

At a trial this summer, prosecutors presented evidence that Mr. Rosen had funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to two Democratic assemblymen, William F. Boyland Jr. of Brooklyn and Anthony S. Seminerio, of Queens, through sham consulting contracts.

In return, prosecutors charged that the officials showered Mr. Rosen’s organization with state money and lobbied the state government on his behalf.

Our borough's proud achievement

From the Times Ledger:

Of the 13 legislators who left office due to scandal or ethical misconduct from 2005-10, nearly a quarter of them were from Queens, according to a report released Monday by good government group Citizens Union on turnover in the state Legislature.

The number of state legislators leaving office due to criminal charges or misconduct has tripled in the last six years compared to the six-year period from 1999-2004, the report found.

Former Flushing state Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin was sent to prison on corruption charges and ex-Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio resigned in June 2009 after being indicted for corruption.

Erstwhile state Sen. Hiram Monserrate was kicked out of the Senate for cutting his girlfriend, Karla Giraldo, with a broken glass.

While the report did not document the departures of statewide officials, former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi of Forest Hills resigned in 2006 over a scandal involving him having the State Police chauffeur his ailing wife.

From 2005-10, 13 lawmakers were booted from office due to criminal charges or misconduct while only four legislators left for the same reasons from 1999-2004, the report found.

Seminerio dies in prison

The Queens Courier has learned that disgraced former Assemblymember Anthony Seminerio passed away in jail on January 6.

The news was confirmed by a spokesperson for the Federal Medical Center at Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina.

The 75-year-old, who previously represented the 38th District in southwest Queens for 30 years, was sentenced in February 2010 by Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald to six years in prison for defrauding the people of New York while he was a member of the State Legislature.

No get-out-of-jail pass for Two Ton Tony

No pol jail pass
By BRUCE GOLDING, NY Post

A judge yesterday rejected crooked ex-pol Anthony Seminerio's bid to get sprung from the slammer pending an appeal of his corruption conviction.

Manhattan federal Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said the ex-Democratic assemblyman from Queens was unlikely to win a reversal of his guilty plea in a $1 million bribery scheme.

Buchwald also blasted the corpulent onetime correction officer for trying to weasel out of his six-year prison based on his "carefully circumscribed" words in court.

Seminerio wants out

From the NY Post:

Corrupt ex-politician Anthony Seminerio wants to be sprung from the slammer while he appeals his six-year stretch for influence peddling.

In court papers filed yesterday, his lawyer said the former Democratic assemblyman from Queens -- who's locked up at the same North Carolina prison complex as Ponzi monster Bernard Madoff -- "poses neither a flight risk nor a threat to the community."

The Manhattan federal-court filing also describes the corpulent crook as "an elderly man with significant health problems" who "always appeared in court when required to do so."

Seminerio, who pleaded guilty to pocketing bribes through a sham consulting firm, plans to base his appeal on a recent Supreme Court ruling that overturned former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling's conviction for "honest services" fraud.

Graphic from the Village Voice.

"It takes two to tango"

From the NY Post:

The state Health Department last month asked Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to investigate MediSys Health Network -- which operates Jamaica Hospital in Queens and Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn, among others.

According to a source familiar with the history of the Health Department's inquiry, Cuomo's probe will stay clear of MediSys' entanglements with Seminerio (which remain the US attorney's domain) -- but will rather look at accusations of breach of responsibility by the hospitals' boards.

We wouldn't be surprised if they find ample wrongdoing.

After all, judging by court documents, the MediSys-Seminerio partnership just may encapsulate almost everything that's wrong with the way Albany functions.

According to a sentencing report submitted by US Attorney Preet Bharara last year, MediSys affiliates paid more than $390,000 since the late '90s to retain Seminerio's sham "consulting" firm, while the assemblyman remained vigilant in protecting the hospitals' interests.

A MediSys spokesman insists that Seminerio was hired only to lobby for the company on the city and federal levels.

But this strains credulity -- especially since wiretapped conversations caught Seminerio telling CEO David Rosen about all the muscle he's throwing around for MediSys in Albany.

That, MediSys claims, was done purely of the assemblyman's own initiative.

Right.

Indeed, the feds caught Seminerio on tape telling ex-Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin (who was also put away for corruption) that he got into the "consulting" business after watching folks in the health-care industry -- Rosen, specifically -- get rich off of state funds that he helped secure.

(Rosen, incidentally, took home a salary of $2.2 million in 2006.)

New state ethics bill introduced

From the Times Union:

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance stood beside Eric Schneiderman and a group of senators to unveil yet another piece of legislation to beef up New York's ethics laws.

The bill would require public officials to abide a "duty of faithful public service" -- a broad and hopefully less onerous standard for prosecutors to enforce -- as well as tightening laws against bribing a public official.

"It's time for local prosecutors such as myself to play a primary role in addressing public corruption," said Vance, who took office earlier this year. The new language is similar to the federal "honest services" language which led to the conviction last year of former Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, R-Brunswick.

Bruno, who faces up to 8 years in prison when sentenced Thursday, has said he will appeal the conviction.

But Vance said the new language is more narrowly construed than the federal statute, which is under constitutional challenge before the U.S. Supreme Count. He and others believe it is a necessary tool to add to prosecutors' war chests as legislators say "bad apples" have fueled an overall perception of corruption. Recent cases resulting in convictions include Bruno and former Queens Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio, who received a 6-year federal term, were pursued by federal prosecutors. The state Attorney General's Office is pursuing two civil cases against Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., who is also under federal investigation.

"This is 2010. We are not living in the Boss Tweed era anymore, and yet there is seemingly a tide of graft and corruption scandals that flood out of New York, scandals which reinforce New Yorkers' perception that all of us lawmakers are crooks or clowns," said Assemblyman Micah Kellner, D-Manhattan, who is carrying the bill in the Assembly. Schneiderman is the measure's prime sponsor in the Senate.

"People who want to go into public service for the right reasons are deterred by some bad apples, and this will hopefully help out the good apples," said Sen. Neil Breslin, D-Bethlehem.

The latest crooked pol roundup: Espada, Smith, Parker & the Boylands

From the Daily News:

Senate President Malcolm Smith ripped off an elderly Queens couple he'd promised to build a dream house for in a land deal under scrutiny by the FBI, the Daily News has learned.

Cora Wheeling, 70, and her husband, Eddie, 71, wound up with no home to show for the $88,200 they put down toward a split-level Smith claimed he'd build them.

They sued in 1998; Smith still owes them more than $60,000.

"I didn't know he's a rat," an irate Cora Wheeling said. "I should have known better."

The house was supposed to be part of a subdivision Smith was trying to build on 230th St. in Cambria Heights. That deal is at the center of an expanding federal probe, sources said.

The FBI is also looking at why Smith got a steep discount from an architect hired for a job at that same address. The architect then got work at nonprofits Smith has funded with taxpayer dollars.

Investigators want to know if Smith used his influence as an elected official to benefit himself financially, a possibly criminal conflict of interest.

From the NY Post:

A do-nothing Brooklyn charity created with the help of state Sen. Kevin Parker used most of the $18,750 in taxpayer funds he steered to it to hire the brother of his chief-of-staff as a "planning consultant."

The only community program the Building Blocks Local Development Corp. managed to implement since it was created in 2004 was a part-time vegetable stand staffed by local teens at a farmers market on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn.

Parker has been uncharacteristically mum on Building Blocks, which has no office or discernible staff and only sporadically filed IRS forms designed to provide accountability of its spending.

That didn't stop Parker from trying to fund the organization -- authorizing $75,000 in pork-barrel money in five separate member-item grants since 2004.

From the NY Post:

A hospital group linked to an influence-peddling scandal in Albany put three members of a prominent family of Brooklyn politicians on its payroll, records and e-mails obtained by The Post show.

Prosecutors say MediSys Health Network, which runs Jamaica, Flushing and Brookdale hospitals and other ventures, gave $390,000 in "corrupt payments" to crooked ex-Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio's bogus consulting firm for help with government funding and acquisition of hospitals.

It also paid three members of the Boyland family, a force in central Brooklyn politics for decades:

* Assemblyman William F. Boyland Jr., a Democrat who represents Brownsville, was a "patient recruiter" for the MediSys-managed Brookdale Medical Center for years while helping the hospitals get state grants and lobbying for the network.

* His father, former Assemblyman William F. Boyland Sr., spent years on Brookdale's payroll, doing "public outreach."

"I improved the image of the hospital and tried to get patients to go there," he told The Post. He said he "retired" last June, the same month Seminerio pleaded guilty to fraud.

* Boyland Jr.'s sister, former City Councilwoman Tracy Boyland, helped Brookdale get $2.6 million in grants when she represented Brownsville. After leaving office in 2005, she was hired by Neighborhood Health Providers, a MediSys health-insurance company. She did not return calls.

The US Attorney's Office said only that its probe stemming from the Seminerio case is ongoing.

From the NY Post:

State Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr., already slapped with two lawsuits over alleged corruption at his Bronx health centers, may still be on the hot seat for Medicaid fraud.

State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit asked for patient records from the Bronx Democrat's Soundview HealthCare Network, according to an October letter sent to Espada and included in court records.

The letter requests the "entire treatment history" and original charts for 259 patients.

One of those patients, Alfreda Alston, 54, of The Bronx, made repeated trips to the Soundview dental clinic over a year -- all paid for through Medicaid. Despite X-rays and exams, the staff could find nothing wrong with Alston's aching tooth, according to her daughter, Alfreda Jones.

Alston finally went to another dentist who fixed the ailment with a simple extraction.

Seminerio sentenced to 6 years

Ex-assemblyman Anthony Seminerio sentenced to 6 years in prison
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A veteran New York assemblyman accused of pocketing $1 million from people who did business with the state has been sentenced to six years in prison.

Anthony Seminerio had pleaded guilty last year to defrauding his Queens constituents of honest services.

In court papers, his lawyers had argued for home detention. But a federal judge in Manhattan said on Thursday he deserved prison time for abusing the public trust.

The 74-year-old Seminerio had served in the assembly since 1978 before resigning last year.

Prosecutors accused him of using his consulting firm to solicit about $1 million from a hospital, college and lobbying firm without doing any work for them.

Photo from the NY Sun

Court ruling could let Bruno & Seminerio off the hook

From the Queens Chronicle:

This book was closed, some thought.

A series of convictions — culminating in the recent prosecutions of former state Sen. Joe Bruno and former Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio — had finally cast light on Albany’s legislative underworld. Its most egregious players had faced justice. And newfound federal scrutiny would surely deter those who would follow their unseemly path.

But a trio of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court could soon turn back the clock — setting the stage for pols like Bruno and Seminerio to escape the long prison terms that otherwise await them.

The court began hearing arguments against the government’s “honest services fraud” law last Tuesday. Enacted in 1988, the law criminalizes ethical lapses among public and private officials. Should the justices strike it down, thousands of white-collar offenders convicted under the statute, including Bruno and Seminerio, could be set free.

At question is whether the law adequately defines corruption by establishing a clear line between minor moral lapses and criminal activity. In the first of two hearings last week, the justices seemed to agree it did not.

Shady dealings at Long Island College Hospital

From the Daily News:

Since 1988, the vital, century-old LICH has been driven into the ground by a monolithic health system called Continuum, ruled by a former Ed Koch crony named Stanley Brezenoff, who is the Darth Vader of what Jack Newfield called the Permanent Government of New York.

In 1999, a $140 million bequest to LICH by Donald and Mildred Othmer of Brooklyn Heights apparently vanished into the Continuum ether. You can't find a bedpan in LICH paid for from that dough. Continuum, according to [medical director Dr. John] Romanelli, also sold off $50 million in LICH real estate "for which there is crazy Hollywood accounting."

"Now Continuum is asking state taxpayers to assume all the debts that they amassed," says Jeff Ruggiero, attorney for the LICH medical staff.

"And Continuum continues to act as an active parent, with Brezenoff negotiating the merger with Downstate behind closed doors, like a Tammany Hall deal," says Romanelli.

"We originally filed a complaint with the New York State Department of Health and the state attorney general in January 2008 alleging that Continuum was running an illegal operation by seizing complete control over LICH without the necessary approvals," says Ruggiero. "We had witnesses, a half-dozen doctors, some members of the LICH board, who traveled to Albany, ready to testify that Continuum was behaving as an 'active' parent rather than a 'passive' parent of LICH. Which is illegal. DOH never called a single witness."

Instead DOH gave Continuum a pass.

This is because nobody works the bureaucracy better than Brezenoff, the quintessential political "fixer."

Another member of the Permanent Government, state Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio of Queens recently pleaded guilty in federal court to receiving $500,000 in bribes via the MediSys Health Network - that had a murky relationship with Jamaica Hospital, not unlike Continuum's with LICH - to influence DOH officials to approve Jamaica Hospital's takeover of Mary Immaculate Hospital.

The U.S. attorney for the Southern District's sentencing memo, and the FBI wiretap transcripts of Seminerio, offer a disturbing MRI of how deeply political corruption is encoded in the DNA of the Permanent Government and the health care system of New York. On these tapes, Seminerio talks to or mentions various DOH officials, pols and players like Joe Bruno, Shelly Silver, convicted ex-Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin and, of course, Stanley Brezenoff.

Judge not sympathetic toward Two-Ton Tony

From the Queens Campaigner:

After the attorney representing former state Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio argued that his client was a hardworking public servant who bent over backward for his constituents, U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald expressed reservations about the defense’s statements.

“Someone who is elected is supposed to support his constituents without being paid more than his salary,” Buchwald said.

It was a phrase Buchwald frequently repeated several times throughout the defense’s daylong arguments at the Oct. 30 pre-sentencing hearing for Seminerio, a politician from Richmond Hill who pleaded guilty in June to taking money from Jamaica Hospital administrators in exchange for lobbying state health officials on their behalf.

Two-Ton Tony's chat with McLaughlin

From the Village Voice:

Seminerio told McLaughlin about how he had secretly become his own lobbyist, getting thousands of dollars in fees from hospitals to push Albany bureaucrats for favors. Fortunately for history, McLaughlin was recording the discussions in an effort to gain leniency for his own crimes (he got ten years anyway).

"We don't have no contracts we have handshakes," Seminerio says as they sip coffee on September 28 at the Atlantic Diner in Richmond Hill.

McLaughlin salutes his companion's initiative: "Take your wallets there," he says.

"Take your wallets there!" responds Seminerio.

The duo commiserated again on November 15.

Seminerio: Think of what I'm saying to you. What the fuck does it mean that we're elected officials? It doesn't mean shit.

McLaughlin: It's true.

AS: Who was that guy you replaced?

BM: That's true. You almost forget after awhile.

AS: Who was the guy that you replaced?

BM: I guess Doug Prescott was in there in the beginning.

AS: But who the fuck even remembers?

BM: Yeah.

AS: Who remembers anyone? Tell me one good thing he did for anybody. And he must have did a lot of good things.

Photo from the Daily News

3 hospitals have no hope for revival

From The Real Deal:

Brooklyn-based developer and investment group Guttman Realty made the winning bid for the auction of two bankrupt Caritas Healthcare properties, with the aggregate purchase price coming in at $26.63 million.

The buyer has not settled on an official use for the two properties, but is considering transforming the Mary Immaculate site for educational, religious, non-profit or governmental use, and using the St. John's site as an office building.

From the Daily News:

Guttman gained notoriety when one of his properties, the Greenpoint Terminal Market, was the scene of a 10-alarm fire in 2006. He and his partners were charged with hundreds of counts of environmental crimes - one for each day they were in violation - for failing to maintain the site prior to the fire.

And from the Queens Courier:

A mandatory injunction to reopen The New Parkway Hospital was denied in U.S. Federal Court on Tuesday, October 20.

“We were very disappointed at the end decision,” said Dr. Robert Aquino, owner/CEO.

At the hearing, former Assemblymember Anthony Seminerio – who pleaded guilty to one count of honest services mail fraud and vacated his seat after a Manhattan grand jury indicted him for receiving approximately $1 million from hospitals and related entities – had been subpoenaed to testify, but the judge deemed it unnecessary.

Hearing could reopen Parkway Hospital

Hosp seeks mandatory, preliminary injunction; Indicted Assemb. Anthony Seminerio, Jamaica Hospital/Medisys CEO David Rosen scheduled to testify

Who: Dr. Robert Aquino, owner/CEO of Parkway Hospital; David Rosen, president/CEO Jamaica Hospital/Medisys Corp; Fmr. Assemb. Anthony Seminerio and counsel from NYS Attorney General’s office.

What: Parkway is seeking a mandatory preliminary injunction so it may reopen. In a rare turn of events, the state of NY will be on the defense at this hearing and must now prove why Parkway should not get its license back.

Parkway is confident that the hearing will show that the state acted improperly in:

(A) closing a private hospital without due process of law and,

(B) allowing a corrupt politician (Seminerio) to call the shots at the Dept. of Health which assisted said politician in closing the hospital down when the hospital’s CEO refused to pay what amounted to a bribe.

Pkwy anticipates that Seminerio will be called as a witness and will be compelled by the judge to “specify” names, as Seminerio has already pleaded guilty and no longer has any privilege against self-incrimination. Note: Seminerio is set to be sentenced in the very next courtroom, same day, same time.

Mr. Rosen, head of Jamaica Hospital, has also been subpoenaed to testify at this hearing.

When/Where: Tuesday, October 20, 2009. U.S. Federal court located at 500 Pearl Street in lower Manhattan. The courtroom is Judge Kaplan's on the 12th floor.

Why: To reopen Parkway Hospital in Queens, effectively helping to alleviate the dire shortage of hospital beds in the borough, improve the quality of health care and give back hundreds of jobs that were lost last year when Parkway was illegally shuttered.

###

Media Contact: Alan Krawitz on behalf of Pkwy and Dr. Robert Aquino 631.741.9391 or alankrawitz@optonline.net

Charities' funds frozen

From the Queens Chronicle:

Former Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio committed the crime, but leaders of local community organizations feel they are doing the time.

Approximately 20 nonprofits that serve Richmond Hill, Woodhaven, Ozone Park, Ridgewood and Glendale are struggling to make ends meet without the aid of discretionary funds that had always been provided by Seminerio, who resigned in June from the 38th District Assembly seat and pleaded guilty to fraud charges the following day.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) suspended all the disgraced politician’s member items when he fell under suspicion for misappropriating funds. A spokesman for Silver said member items were not granted to Seminerio in 2009-10, and that past funding had been suspended. He wouldn’t confirm how much money was allocated for local nonprofits, and said he was uncertain if that funding had already been used.

Newly elected Assemblyman Mike Miller (D-Glendale), who was sworn in last week after the special election, says he is working to recapture some of the funding, but with only a few months left in the year, a positive outcome for the inherited dilemma doesn’t look promising.

“When someone is indicted they [Assembly leaders] have to be very careful,” Miller said.

Although none of the nonprofit organizers blamed Miller, the leaders, who represent a vast array of service-oriented groups — from welfare, health and education to senior centers and animal shelters — shared the same frustration: their services are suffering and they shouldn’t be punished for the actions of their former representative.

38th AD ballot - before Paterson

You'll notice this ballot for the Democratic primary has 4 names on it. Albert Baldeo, Farouk Samaroo, Michael Miller and Nick Comaianni. All four of them did fundraising, campaigning and went out and got signatures that qualified them for the ballot. The Board of Elections printed this ballot up. Then Governor Paterson stuck his nose in the race and called a special election which meant the Dems put up their favorite candidate and all that work by the other 3 went to waste. And how much money was wasted converting the ballot? When voters in the 38th AD go to the polls today, they will have to find a separate voting booth that was set up just to tally the results of the special election. The booth may not even be at their assigned polling site.

Today, the "D" on the ballot will stand for "disenfranchisement".

Two-Ton Tony's office broken into

From the NY Post:

Crooked ex-Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio was a crime victim yesterday -- not a perpetrator -- when thieves stole all the business equipment from his shuttered Queens office, cops said.

An administrative assistant for the state Assembly uncovered the break-in at 10 a.m., when he showed up at Seminerio's government-owned office on Jamaica Avenue in Richmond Hill to inspect the place.

The assistant, who had gone to the storefront office to get it ready for Seminerio's future replacement, found it ransacked and the back door kicked in.

Police said that a copy machine, a printing machine, an air conditioner, two computer routers and an air purifier had been stolen.