New York State Attorney General Letitia James accused Jewish owners of four nursing homes in New York of misusing $83 million in government funds and diverting them towards the purchase of Israel’s national airline, El Al.
In a lawsuit filed this week, James alleges that instead of employing the funds to care for residents and hire adequate staff, Kenneth Rozenberg and Daryl Hagler, the owners of Centers Health Care, have been using the money for their own personal benefit. In 2020, Rozenberg purchased a controlling stake in the Israeli airline El Al for $107 million. Hagler became a director of El Al in 2021, and per the suit spent $132 million in 2022 to purchase three properties in Brooklyn and Queens.
“Rozenberg’s investment in El Al, which ultimately allowed him to become the controlling shareholder of the airline, was made possible by his and Hagler’s longstanding pattern of fraud and illegality,” the suit says.
James is seeking to block Centers Health Care from admitting new residents until they are properly staffed to care for current residents as well as hire financial and healthcare monitors to ensure compliance. Rozenberg and Hagler are also being asked to return the allegedly stolen funds.
The facilities in question are Beth Abraham Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in the Bronx, Buffalo Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Buffalo, Holliswood Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare in Queens and Martine Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in White Plains.
Centers Health Care denied the allegations. “Centers Health Care prides itself on its commitment to patient care,” Jeff Jacomowitz, a spokesman for Centers Health Care, said in a statement. “Centers denies the New York attorney general’s allegations wholeheartedly and attempted to resolve this matter out of court. We will fight these spurious claims with the facts on our side.”
Per the suit, Centers Health Care has been engaging in fraud since as early as 2013. The suit alleges that the nursing homes often left residents sitting in their own feces and urine for hours, failed to respond to calls for help when residents fell and kept residents malnourished and starving.
“Nursing homes are meant to be safe spaces where the most vulnerable members of our community receive the care and dignity they deserve. Instead, the owners of Centers Health Care allegedly used these four nursing homes — and the vulnerable New Yorkers who lived there — to extract millions of dollars for their personal use, leading to elderly residents and those with disabilities suffering unconscionable pain, neglect, degradation, and even death,” James said in a press release.
“Rather than honor their legal duty to residents to provide the highest possible quality of life, Centers leadership and their associates seized every opportunity to put personal profit over resident care,” she added.
Four hundred residents at Centers Health Care facilities died in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The suit alleges that they died as a result of the nursing home’s failure to provide adequate staff and follow COVID-19 safety protocols.
In the first year of the pandemic, more than 15,000 nursing home residents statewide died due to the coronavirus and its complications, according to a state audit.
Rozenberg was reported to have used his son, Eli Rozenberg, an Israeli citizen, as the frontman for his bid to purchase El Al, due to a law preventing non-Israelis from owning the airline.
The suit alleges that in 2020, “Hagler used a bank account that received, among other sums, profits obtained fraudulently and illegally from the Nursing Homes to loan Rozenberg $103 million — at no interest and with no repayment terms or loan documentation — to facilitate Rozenberg’s purchase of the Israeli national airline, El Al. In the fall of 2020, Rozenberg lent $109 million to a company controlled by his son to purchase a controlling stake in the airline for a total of $107 million.”
The senior Rozenberg made Aliyah in 2021 and took control of the company in May 2021.
9 comments:
My mother was a Centers patient. She was well cared for and got great care. This is the rashanta Tish that all the Big Asskonim said to vote for . She knows how to take Yiddishe gelt for campaign donations. But then comes out to hunt down the Jew. No different than Al Sharpton. Stupid yiddelech never learn.
Cuomo edict that mandated the nursing homes to accept every referral even a covid pisitive patient killed the nursing home residents.
He was the only govoner in the nation that did this.
Everyone in the Healthcare sector was shocked. Because covid attacked the elderly first.
It's sad that the are making take the downfall for Cuomo.
centers employs hundreds of frum erliche yidden who are baalei mishpachas...the attorney general and the prosecution are affecting thousands of peoples livelihoods...it's not so simple...even if a couple of employees made some mistakes, (which who said they did, they are innocent until proven guilty), should so many people suffer for no reason other then some headlines in the newspapers? if their guilty, let them pay some fines or do community service etc. in today's nyc rapists, kidnapers, and murderers get less jail time than a guy who messed up on a business deal...what a sham attempt at justice, they should go after the real criminals.
Are you getting paid to post this? All those nursing home's revenue is from taxpayers money. It's not his money
I posted about my mother at Centers. No I wasn't paid. If the government pays for services rendered that's the vendors money now. The government may have e used taxpayers money but it has been earned by services provided. Most of that money goes to pay for staff and supplies so what's left goes to the owner. How is that still taxpayer money? Please comment again. I enjoy your challenging debate.
If it’s true then no difference how many heligeh groyseh shaeineh yidden n heiligeh nushim tzidkuniyois rebbetzins work there, shut it down. Beesha vecharpeh. Where’s the heiligeh Riboino Shel Oilem in all this?? Sheveeseeeee!!!!
to give centers a blanket "heter" to do whatever they want, wasn't the point of the post; one can not live in a society in which crimminalty goes unpunished. the point was to show that even if there was crimminality involved, the current "justice" system in nyc is ineffective and corrupt, to say the least. (low or none at all cash bail for violent repeat offenders, including rapists, murderers and kidnappers, who have reoffended upon release, anarchy on the subways, an ineffective city gov't, etc, etc). one is urged to look at the totality of the case and the hundreds and perhaps thousands of people, who are your brothers and sisters, who might be affected by an overzealous prosecutor looking for headlines and a convenient and easy scapegoat for the covid 19 nursing home mismanagement scandal (and over 200 billion dollar covid 19 relief fraud) in new york state. and no , i was not paid to write this or the previous post, but i will defend frum yidden in the eyes of a dangerous anti semitic world...(which was clearly seen during covid, in which Cuomo, who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of elderly nursing home patients, blamed the yidden in boro park). should the alleged white collar crimes of a few individuals affect thousands of innocent people (regardless of religion or ethnicity)?
You are an ugly person.
Nursing homes are funded by the government throughout taxpayer money.
The pay per bed is calculated to give best care and leaves a small potion of profit, in this case these 2 partners cheated the system and deprived care to profit more. It's not rocket science.
Post a Comment