Another Effort to Sell a Nursing Home to Allure, Joel Landau and Their Partners: Profit Before Care – Please AG PROTECT OUR MOST VULNERABLE

Another Attempted Nursing Home Purchase by Allure – Whose Pockets Will be Lined and How can the Public Help?

The below-referenced case is being heard. The Greater Nursing Home owners are attempting to sell the facility to the Allure Group cast of characters: Joel Landau (not photo attached, of cours), and the Rubin(s). The AG is attempting to prevent the sale. It’s calendared for  8/15/17 per the alert below.

 

Oral arguments will be heard at that time. Frank Carone (disinterest? – NO) (partner of Brooklyn Democrat Boss Seddio and Mayor deBlasio’s L.I fundraiser) Howard Fensterman  – the lawyer attempting to facilitate the hand-over of yet another facility to predatory owners (you’ve seen his name before).

With all of the money that incestuously changes hands among this cast of characters it’s a wonder why they don’t just all share the same bank account and be done with it.

 

Being clear, it is yet another effort facilitated by the co-opted NY State DOH and its Public Health & Health Planning Council  (think Rivington House) to  sit back and lets these corporate takeovers happen. This cast of characters is a group of morally challenged individuals who make millions of dollars off the backs of elderly and infirmed patients.

Where is the San Francisco Bee when you need it? 

 

Index Number: 155305/2016
The following case which you have subscribed to in eTrack has been updated. Changes from the last update are shown in red and are annotated.

Court: New York Civil Supreme
Index Number: 155305/2016
Case Name: GREATER HARLEM NURSING vs. X
Case Type: E-Other Special Proceedings
Track: Standard
Upstate RJI Number: 
Disposition Date: 
Date NOI Due: 
NOI Filed: 
Calendar Number: 
RJI Filed: 06/28/2016
Jury Status: 
Justice Name: KOTLER, LYNN R.

Attorney/Firm for Plaintiff: 
ABRAMS FENSTERMAN FENSTERMAN/
3 DAKOTA DR, STE 300 
LAKE SUCCESS, NY 11042
Attorney Type: Attorney Of Record
Status: Active

Last Appearance:
Appearance Date: 07/12/2017 — Information updated
Appearance Time: 
On For: Supreme Trial — Information updated
Appearance Outcome: Remove Stay — Information updated
Justice: KOTLER, LYNN R. — Information updated
Part: STATUS CONFERENCE 8 — Information updated
Comments: 

Future Appearances: — Information updated
Appearance Date: 08/15/2017 — Information updated
Appearance Time: — Information updated
On For: Motion — Information updated
Appearance Outcome: — Information updated
Justice: KOTLER, LYNN R. — Information updated
Part: IAS MOTION 8EFM — Information updated
Comments: 10AM — Information updated
ORAL ARGUMENT — Information updated
Appearance Date: 08/15/2017 — Information updated
Appearance Time: — Information updated
On For: Motion — Information updated
Appearance Outcome: — Information updated
Justice: KOTLER, LYNN R. — Information updated
Part: IAS MOTION 8EFM — Information updated
Comments: 10AM — Information updated
ORAL ARGUMENT — Information updated

Older appearances may exist but are not shown.

Motions: Motion Number: 2
Date Filed: 07/26/2016
Filed By: PLAINT
Relief Sought: Leave To Intervene
Submit Date: — Information updated
Answer Demanded: No
Status: Open: 

Before Justice: KOTLER
Decision: 
Order Signed Date: 

Motion Number: 1
Date Filed: 
Filed By: 
Relief Sought: Other Reliefs
Submit Date: 
Answer Demanded: No
Status: Open: 

Before Justice: KOTLER
Decision: 
Order Signed Date: 

Scanned Decisions: None on file.

To access this case directly click here.
This is an automated e-mail. If you have questions about your case please contact the Court directly.

The Hopkins Center Nursing Home in Brooklyn – Your Dog Will Get Better Treatment in a Kennel

 

“The Nearby Kennel is a Far Better Place to Be Than Hudson Center”

 

Dear Readers: This week we received numerous Letters to the Editor from people who have family members in the Hopkins Center in Brooklyn, NY. There are allegations that patients are being held against their will. There are claims of fair hearings that are either not being held or are being held and then ignored. In one case, the Social Worker involved allegedly advised the family that the patient could not leave but the patient is, according to the family, well enough. The family alleges that the social workers hold patients for the purposes of continuing to collect medicaid and medicare benefits for treatments that are either unnecessary or not being performed and for medications that are not being distributed.

We take letters like these very seriously. It is our hope that someone reading this can look into the Hudson facility to investigate.

Landau and his ilk have not been given a star for excellence in the compassion and kindness department. They are experts in their capacity to manipulate the system with payoffs and financial interests. And, as we have stated many times, but for a threatened copyright litigation, we would post Joel Landau’s face for public consumption.

In the interest of protecting the elderly and most vulnerable in our society, we are reposting information from previous posts.

As to the letters we have received, they are not being posted because they contain medical information and records about patients. Subject to the authorization of the families involved, the records are available for law enforcement investigation.

LM 10-7-17

http://nursing-homes.healthgrove.com/l/9416/Hopkins-Center-For-Rehabilitation-And-Healthcare

Hopkins Center for Rehab: 

https://www.yelp.com/biz/hopkins-center-for-rehabilitation-and-healthcare-brooklyn-2

“Stay away from this place the director Eileen lies! They made my mother walk around with a hospital type looking gown; never dressed her up to sit in the dining room; left the bed wet  and walking around in her slippers nothing on her when she could’ve fell; no supervision !”

To sum it up…as long as there is a failure of moral imperative-as long as the anything goes ‘free market’ health care continues, there will be enabling of criminal behavior. There will be no questioning that something that goes on within the four walls of the nursing facilities is ‘legal.’ How could it not be when there is no guideline and rare enforcement that might curb the abuse on many levels.

If an operator, like Landau in New York must simply pay chump change penalties/settlements to ignorant or willfully complicit government officials – to continue their mismanagement, there will be no change.

The negligent Albany legislators who are kept in office by predatory real estate interests and in the pockets of nursing home lobby groups such as Leading Age, that are run by the same people profiting from the government negligence and moral blindness, our most vulnerable population at the end of their lives will continue to be preyed upon.

Brius Heathcare, Shlomo Rechnitz and Public Funds – Audit

http://www.times-standard.com/article/NJ/20170628/NEWS/170629883

State to audit nursing home company’s use of public funds

A state committee voted Wednesday to approve an audit of California’s largest nursing home owner, Brius Healthcare Services, and whether the company misused hundreds of millions of dollars in government health care funds to benefit its affiliated businesses.

North Coast Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) is a member of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee that voted in favor of the audit Wednesday afternoon. He said the Los Angeles-based Brius Healthcare Services has a “very convoluted” system of nursing homes under limited partnerships and has connections with other businesses founded by Brius Healthcare’s CEO Shlomo Rechnitz.

“Brius controls one in 14 [nursing home] beds in California and it is a very convoluted network of limited partnerships and all sorts of other mechanisms out there,” Wood said to the Times-Standard. “Part of this audit is to see if they are all legitimate. … Our feeling is the way they’re doing this is to maximize profits. It’s not about providing high quality care for people.”

Brius’ spokesman Stefan Friedman wrote in a statement to the Times-Standard that Brius representatives were present at the committee hearing today and were in full support of the proposed audit.

“Not only will the audit results prove that Brius has abided by all applicable rules and regulations, it will also show that Brius went well above and beyond its duties and obligations to subsidize the care of California’s most vulnerable,” Friedman said.

Friedman also questioned McGuire’s and Wood’s information, which it states was provided by the National Union of Healthcare Workers. The union has been outspoken in its opposition to Brius Healthcare Services and created a website — briuswatch.org — to scrutinize the company and its CEO Shlomo Rechnitz.

“What is most disturbing though is that legislators McGuire and Wood would also glean their information from ‘newspapers’ and blogs, demonstrating their lack of understanding for the very program they oversee,” Friedman continued. “We urge the community and the media to follow the audit through to its findings.”

Brius Healthcare, which owns five of the six nursing homes in Humboldt County and over 80 nursing homes statewide, received over $500 million in reimbursement funds in 2015 from the MediCal and Medicare government health plan programs, which made up 80 percent of its profits, Wood said.

Wood and his North Coast legislative colleague Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) said Brius paid out more than $67 million that year to businesses with similar or related ownership for the purchase of services, goods and supplies, and paid more than $46 million to companies established Rechnitz that serve as landlords for their nursing home facilities.

A letter from McGuire and Wood to the state audit committee from earlier this month states that there is evidence that Brius facilities paid inflated prices to some of these business, with some prices exceeding 200 percent of market averages.

The nursing home company has come under fire for alleged patient health care violations, which has led to state entities denying the company’s bids to acquire more nursing homes and has led to multiple wrongful death lawsuits to be filed in Humboldt County in recent months.

“This is absolutely unacceptable especially when the state and federal government is spending $500 million dollars to care for our state’s most vulnerable in Brius facilities,” McGuire said to the Times-Standard on Wednesday. “We need to hold this corporation accountable.”

Brius Healthcare has expressed dissatisfaction with the reimbursement rates it receives from the state for treating MediCal patients.

The company temporarily stopped accepting MediCal patients into its Humboldt County nursing homes in 2015 while it disputed reimbursement rates with the North Coast’s MediCal provider, Partnership HealthPlan of California. Partnership HeathPlan agreed to increase reimbursement rates to Brius and other long-term skilled nursing facilities.

In the latter half of 2016, Brius Healthcare used its plans to close of three Humboldt County nursing homes to pressure Partnership into providing higher reimbursement rates so as to prevent the closures. Brius Healthcare cited low staffing levels as their reasoning for the proposed closure.

“We are confident we can avoid these closures, but we need PHP to start paying its fair share and allow us to attract full-time staff to meet our patients’ needs,” Friedman told the Times-Standard in September.

Partnership declined to increase rates, prompting Brius to announce its intention to cancel its contract with Partnership. However, this announcement was shortly retracted after it became clear that the company would lose reimbursement funds. Brius announced in November that it would only be closing one nursing home — Pacific Rehabilitation and Wellness Center in Eureka — instead of three.

McGuire and Wood said the audit will likely be completed in 2018 and will be made public when it is given to the Legislature. McGuire and Wood said that the findings could result in legislation or, in the worst case scenario, criminal charges filed by the Attorney General’s Office.

To read the remainder of the article click here.

Shlomo Rechnitz and Brius – Neglecting Patients for Financial Gain

http://briuswatch.org/brius/humboldt-county-brius-home-hit-another-wrongful-death-lawsuit/

Humboldt County Brius home hit another wrongful death lawsuit

A Brius-owned nursing home in Humboldt County evicted a 63-year-old patient suffering from dementia and left him alone in a hotel room where he died four days later, according to a lawsuit filed last month by an attorney for the man’s sister.

Alan Dewey had been living for nearly two years at the Eureka Rehabilitation & Wellness Center, which state regulators fined $160,000 earlier this year for substandard care that stemmed from chronic understaffing. The nursing home also has been named in two other wrongful death lawsuits since November.

Dewey was admitted to the  home in late 2014, according to his complaint filed by Amelia F. Burroughs of the law firm Janssen Malloy LLP. He had suffered a “significant brain injury in 1975 and a stroke, which affected his vision.” He also had “a seizure disorder and multiple complex medical problems.”

On Oct. 14, 2016, the nursing home “deposited” Dewey at the Clarion Hotel in Eureka with his medications, “a half-gallon of milk, instant noodles, and Velveeta macaroni and cheese,” according to the complaint, which described his hotel stay this way:

“Dewey could not see well enough to attend breakfast in the lobby of the hotel; could not see well enough to sort and take his medications appropriately, and could not see well enough to sort and take his medications appropriately, and could not see well enough to use the key card to enter his room or navigate his surroundings.”

He was found dead inside his hotel room on Oct. 18.

At the time that Dewey was allegedly dumped at the hotel, Rechnitz had announced his intention to close the Eureka nursing home and two others in Humboldt County in a move local officials said was a naked ploy to pressure them into once again boosting his reimbursement rates.

Dewey’s sister, Sherri McKenna, told Courthouse News she thinks her brother was discharged as part of Rechnitz’s effort to clear the nursing home given “the onerous requirements for resident transfers.”

The lawsuit names Brius CEO Shlomo Rechnitz, and several of his corporate entities as defendants for wrongful death and dependent adult abuse. “The facts are horrific,” Burroughs told the news outlet. “The corporate entities running the facility made decisions that I believe really hurt (Dewey).”

Burroughs’ firm is also representing the families of Ralph Sorensen and Randy Kruger. They both died after developing Stage IV pressure ulcers that became infected, according to lawsuits that also name Rechnitz among the defendants.

 

Download (PDF, Unknown) – Wrongful Death Lawsuit

State Sanctioned Harm To Our Most Vulnerable, Landa, Fensterman, the DOH and Schneiderman, Accountability?

Maybe US District Court Judge Will at Long Last Hold the DOH, AG Schneiderman and Owners Like the Sentosa Consortium Accountable for the Deplorable Treatment of The People in Their Facilities

In 2002 the New York Times reported on accusations against the State of New York for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by allegedly “warehousing” adults with disabilities and placing them in homes that were not meeting their needs.

In 2009, the New York Times again reported on violations in an article entitled: State Discriminated Against Mentally Ill, Judge Rules

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/nyregion/09mental.html?_r=0

According to the allegations, not only is the State allowing nursing homes and other facilities to continue to operate substandard facilities that do not adequately protect the most vulnerable in our population, including the elderly and mentally ill; but there are backdoor dealings and conflicts of interest by the State, lawyers representing the State, attorneys representing the nursing homes and the Department of Health (DOH).

In an online radio interview on WNYC (link below) one of the sites referenced is Ocean View Manor in Brooklyn—which is run by the Ben Landa (under an LLC). It happens (fortuitously) that Ben Landa is the business partner of Attorney Howard Fensterman who is also the principal in the sketchy SentosaCare consortia. This incestuous relationship between an attorney, his political connections and a for-profit nursing consortium was further revealed in an investigative story in ProPublica in Oct 2015.

As a reminder, Fensterman has been a campaign fund raiser for Governor Cuomo, Mayor deBlasio and Senator Schumer all of whom are named throughout the allegations, lawsuits and even by the attorney in the referenced lawsuit.

US District Court Judge Garaufis’ words implied that there is appears to be collusion by the DOH and AG Schneiderman and the attorneys for the Nursing Home Industry. He commented that AG Schneiderman should spend less time writing press releases and more time looking into the issues at hand. AG Schneiderman has been defending the DOH and the implication is that the Nursing Home’s attorney was back-door dealing with the health department. This would be consistent with the ProPublica article and the New York Times reports.

WNYC Radio Report: https://www.wnyc.org/story/federal-judge-admonishes-new-york-state-warehousing-mentally-ill/

Mar 23, 2017 · by Cindy Rodriguez

A federal judge is demanding to know whether the state colluded with adult home operators to undermine a legal settlement that took more than a decade to come to fruition.

Under the settlement, which protects 5,000 seriously mentally ill adults, the state agreed to prohibit psychiatric hospitals from discharging people into what are called adult homes, which have come under scrutiny in the past.

But when a man who wanted to live in an adult home challenged the regulation in state court, the state agreed to temporarily halt it — a move that could potentially dissolve the larger agreement.

The man was represented by an attorney for the adult home industry. Jota Borgmann, an attorney for the mentally ill, say emails show the attorney for adult homes potentially colluding with health department lawyers on the lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis says if that’s case, he would consider it “a fraud” on the court.

The state attorney general was representing the Department of Health in the federal court legal settlement. Lawyers for the Attorney General have accused the state of going behind their back to halt the regulation. They’ve asked to withdraw as counsel.

Adult homes are like large group homes — many of them have more than 200 beds — that are for the frail, elderly and disabled.

The state says it can’t comment on pending litigation and any allegations of collusion are patently false.

Listen to the interview above to hear more.

An Alluring Moral Imperative – Save Our Elderly Keep them OUT of Allure or Landau Run Facilities – Letter…

NO PICTURES PERMITTED! 

JOEL LANDAU – ALLURE -JOE LANDAU – ALLURE – JOE LANDAU – ALLURE –

KEEP AWAY!!!!!!

Dear LM –

As you know, I have an interest in seeing to it that there is better protection for the most vulnerable in our community, those to whom we owe our gratitude and respect, the elderly. I can’t help but wondering how we went from being a civilized society to one that cares so little about anything beyond our own pockets. I can’t help but point to the wealthy beneficiaries of our lack of morality as it applies to the elderly. In your comments regarding Joel Landau and Allure, a request for information and a hope that he will be taken out of the equation where the elderly are concerned, I found hope that perhaps my own loved ones would one day be redeemed, albeit posthumously.

THE ALLURE GROUP: – Enabled by Governor Cuomo and the Public Health Planning Council:

I cannot help but going back to where the cancer began vis a vis NY State Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Facilities: namely Albany and the Public Health and Health Planning Council-appointed by Governor Cuomo. Presently much is reliant on Attorney General Schneiderman ‘s lawsuit effort to prevent Allure from buying two more facilities: the Harlem Nursing Home and  the Sts  Joachim & Anne Nursing  Home…a situation which would have been prevented had the PHHPC & Governor Cuomo, who appoints these deleterious license enablers, been called to account for the many years of lousy management and sub-par responsibility.

If you believe as I do…and if credit is given to the reported documentation clearly showing that too many of the so-called ‘operators’ of long term care facilities in New York buy these places only to churn them, one cannot merely place the blame on Mayor de Blasio  & his rabid real estate gaming malfeasance. The story began with the certification and enabling of amoral and predatory owners who should never have been allowed to obtain nursing home certification from the PHHPC in the first place.

IT ALL BEGAN IN ALBANY!

Since the indignation and moralistic baloney from Landau/Allure fly in the face of reality and takes front and center in the news, past and present they are the perfect example to reference.  If one looks at the online published segment of a Feb 2016 Public Health & Health Planning Council report one can see how they got where they are:

PHHPC- PROJECT #152128-B HARLEM CENTER FOR NURSING & REHAB:

https://www.health.ny.gov/facilities/public_health_and_health_

planning_council/meetings/2016-01-28/docs/exhibits.pdf

The following screen shots were taken from the above report:

Joel Landau -The Allure of Escaping Millions Richer – Sorry… No Pictures Please

Dear Reader:

Joel Landau, through a series of demands and other bullying tactics sent in the form of threatening letters from Wordpress, claimed an array of Copyright violations. The poor little man did not like having his face on our pages. So he had his pictures forcibly removed from our pages and our archives with threat of shutting us down for Copyright Violations. While that makes us kinda want to put a Metadata link to his name and Allure Group on every single one of our pages, so that he and Allure will forever be synonymous with every ill, morally bankrupt and skewed activity referenced on these pages (particularly where healthcare facilities are concerned), we figured that would simply be unproductive. Instead, we are going to publish every article about Landau and Allure. We will publish every piece of information available. Just send it over. We hope that one day someone, more clever than him and his band of merry loophole-finders, figures out a way to make him pay for his reprehensible though remarkably clever behavior. He is another person who manipulates the lives of our most vulnerable citizens for ill-gotten gains. To Joel Landau and Shlomo Rechnitz – L’chaim…

http://therealdeal.com/2016/12/30/city-admits-it-doesnt-have-a-legal-case-against-allure-group-over-rivington-house/

City admits it doesn’t have a legal case against Allure Group over Rivington House

Mayor said law department can’t find “pathway” to seeking restitution from Joel Landau’s firm

The city’s hands may be tied when it comes to seeking restitution for the controversial sale of a Manhattan nursing home to a luxury condo developer.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who in April vowed to sue Allure Group for flipping the property at 45 Rivington Street, said Thursday that the city’s lawyers “cannot find an actual pathway” to restitution.

“I support anything that would get us further restitution for what happened,” the mayor said at a press conference, Politico reported. “I made very clear my anger at the way the private-sector firm handled things,” he said. However, “So far, our law department cannot find an actual pathway.”

Allure made $72 million when it sold 45 Rivington to Slate Property Group, after convincing the city to lift a deed restriction on the site. The de Blasio administration maintained that Allure did not tell the city it intended to sell the building to a developer while negotiations were taking place. But a report from the Department of Investigations found that reps for Allure told the city in March 2015 that if the deed weren’t lifted, it would consider a conversion of the property to luxury apartments.

Comptroller Scott Stringer also accused Allure of misleading City Hall, but mostly faulted the de Blasio administration for mishandling information at virtually every turn. Allure maintains it did nothing wrong.

The mayor has insisted he was not aware of the deal.

Allure, led by Joel Launda, has maintained it did not lie to the city, but earlier this month, the mayor signed a bill to increase oversight of deed restrictions.

Meanwhile, the city hired two law firms this year to represent it in the Rivington deal, and in campaign finance investigations. The contracts are for more than $10 million, Politico reported. [Politico] — E.B. Solomont