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.

"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.)

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.

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.

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.

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