New York is suing the controlling owner of El Al Kenny Rosenberg for misappropriating welfare funds in the amount of 83 million dollars

The state of New York is suing the controlling owner of El Al, the Israeli-American businessman Kenny Rosenberg, and the vice chairman of the board, Darrell Hegler, for misappropriating welfare funds in the amount of 83 million dollars received by the nursing home chain they own, Centers Health Care.
Rosenberg and Geller are accused of taking public funds into their pockets and the pockets of their relatives in order to get rich and buy properties - including the El Al company - while the residents of their nursing homes, most of whom live on a welfare allowance transferred to institutions, suffer from criminal neglect.
The 316-page lawsuit details how a lack of personnel in the nursing homes contributed to the neglect of the residents, including those who suffered from malnutrition or were left to sit for hours in their own urine and feces. The lawsuit claims that tenants did not receive meals, their clothes were stolen and emergency buttons were not answered. One elderly man, who suffered from severe pressure sores, contracted sepsis, was hospitalized and died. Another elderly woman was removed from her colostomy bag. Others suffered from dehydration. During the corona epidemic, the virus spread in nursing homes and over 400 residents died.
"Residents were left alone, often unassisted and unsupervised, leading to dangerous falls and broken bones," said New York State Attorney General Latita James. "The tenants lived in squalor, surrounded by neglected food trays, vermin and the smell of human waste.
"Nursing homes are meant to be safe spaces where the most vulnerable members of our community receive the care and respect they deserve. Instead, the owners of Centers Health Care allegedly used their four nursing homes and the vulnerable New Yorkers who lived there to extract millions of dollars for their own personal use, leading to residents Elderly people and those with disabilities who suffer from ongoing pain, neglect, humiliation, and even death. Instead of respecting their legal duty to the residents to provide the highest quality of life, the center's leadership and their partners took advantage of every opportunity for personal gain over care for the residents," said James.
According to the indictment, in 2020 Hegler transferred $103 million to Rosenberg from a bank account that held the fraudulently obtained money, in order to finance the purchase of El Al: "This loan, in the amount of $103 million, came, at least in part, from the fraudulently obtained profits from nursing homes funded by Medicaid ( The government health insurance in the United States, given to citizens with low incomes or disabilities - DA.) Rosenberg's investment in Al-Al, which eventually allowed him to become the controlling owner of the airline, was made possible by his and Hegler's long-standing pattern of fraud and illegality ".
The lawsuit now demands that the company return the money and prohibit the acceptance of new tenants until the nursing homes are staffed.
Those who have followed Rosenberg in recent years were not surprised by the indictment, which comes after a series of publications in the American media about the nature of his business, which painted a picture of someone who takes non-profit nursing homes and turns them into profit-making machines, lays off workers to reduce costs, and changes the relationship of workers to residents and lowers the quality of patient care. These allegations were known even before the purchase of El Al, and the attorney who represented the company, Dori Klegsberg, demanded clarification regarding the $1.65 million settlement that Centers Health Care paid to the US government and the state of New York in 2018, for fraudulent billing practices.
Centers Health Care denies the allegations and a spokesperson said that it "takes pride in its commitment to patient care. We vehemently deny the New York Attorney General's allegations and have attempted to resolve this matter out of court. We will fight these false claims with the facts on our side."