New York Desk

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

CITYWIDE

WJC OFFICIAL FIRED FOR FINANCIAL IMPROPRIETIES

A senior official at the World Jewish Congress was kicked off the organization’s steering committee and asked to “undertake no further activity” on the WJC’s behalf after he publicly raised allegations of financial improprieties at the venerable, 68-year-old organization.

Isi Leibler, an Australian businessman who has a 30-year history with the WJC, was directed to the door during a Monday meeting in New York by the organization’s president, billionaire philanthropist Edgar Bronfman, after Mr. Leibler called for an independent audit of the WJC’s finances. Allegations raised by Mr. Leibler, which he said are backed by the WJC’s former legal adviser in its Geneva office, Daniel Lack, include the existence of a secret million-dollar Swiss bank account and shady pension agreements with various WJC officers.

“Having been involved in the campaign for Soviet Jewry, I must say that the Politburo would have been satisfied with the manner in which I was treated,” Mr. Leibler told The New York Sun yesterday, referring to Monday’s meeting. In press releases, Mr. Bronfman denied all accusations of financial wrongdoing against the WJC.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MAYOR ANNOUNCES HOMELESS INITIATIVE

Mayor Bloomberg took another step toward his goal of “making homelessness extinct in New York” yesterday by announcing the opening of six homeless prevention offices in high-need neighborhoods around the city.

“We are going to hold ourselves accountable for mobilizing resources, attacking problems, and producing results,” Mr. Bloomberg told reporters in the Bronx yesterday. “We will continue our work until all New Yorkers have a place to call home.” In June, Mr. Bloomberg unveiled a five-year plan aimed at cutting the size of the city’s 40,000-strong homeless population by two-thirds, preventing chronic homelessness, building 12,000 units of supportive housing, and decreasing the time and number of people living in the city’s shelter system.

The mayor also said yesterday that there was $150 million in private sector investment to support the new housing and to help pay for rapid-result HIV testing options for single adult man entering shelters.

Mr. Bloomberg wants to change the premise on which the city conducts its homeless services. Instead of seeing homelessness as an unfortunate component of urban living, Mr. Bloomberg wants to prevent New Yorkers from having to live on the streets in the first place. Yesterday’s announcement was meant to tug the city in that direction.

During the next four weeks, new homeless services operations, known as HomeBase offices, will be opened in the South Bronx, East Harlem, Jamaica, Bushwick, and Bedford Stuyvesant. They will provide casework services, short-term financial assistance, job training, child care, and anti-eviction and other legal help.

Bloomberg said the plan will improve the efficiency of a system that is gobbling up money at a voracious rate. Over the last 10 years, the city has spent $4.6 billion – about 10% of the fiscal 2005 budget for the whole city – on building and maintaining shelters. The budget for the Department of Homeless Services tops $700 million, a 75% increase over 2000.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

QUEENS

MORE THAN 100 CHARGED IN INSURANCE SCAM

More than 100 people were charged in connection with an auto insurance scam that cost dozens of insurance companies more than $1 million, the Queens district attorney’s office announced yesterday.

Eleven chiropractors, acupuncturist, and therapists, medical clinics, five runners, and 113 alleged “shadow patients” were charged in the scheme. The two clinics, Booth Chiropractic & Acupuncture in Rego Park and Triboro Chiropractic and Acupuncture in Middle Village, were shut down.

According to the DA’s office, a three-year undercover investigation, named Operation Crash Course, determined that the employees of the two medical clinics defrauded auto insurance companies including All State, State Farm, Liberty Mutual, and Geico by submitting false claims for fake patients and patients with exaggerated injuries.

Those indicted include three chiropractors, Dmitry Davydov and Munan Saif of Booth Chiropractic & Acupuncture and Ralph Morelli of Triboro Chiropractic and Acupuncture; two acupuncturists, Chu Mei Lan Kwok of Booth and Jie Ren of Triboro; two physical/massage therapists, Lokman Darmal of Booth and Leo Pardus of Triboro; two receptionists, Michille Jaramillo and Luz Hernandez Rosada of Booth; an office manager, Nadeja Sposito of Booth, and Jacques Bastien, whom the DA’s office said had ties to both clinics and provided them with fraudulent claimants.

According to the DA’s office, the shadow patients were paid up to $750 each to pose as accident victims. The runners were paid $3,000 for each person they could deliver who was willing to pose as an accident victim.

– Special to the Sun

STATEWIDE

CLINTON, PATAKI HAGGLE OVER COUNSELING PROGRAM FUNDS

Senator Clinton and Governor Pataki faced off yesterday over a September 11 counseling program for firefighters and cops, with the governor blocking Mrs. Clinton’s move to add $4.5 million to the program, saying he’ll take care of it, not her.

The fight grew out of an amendment Mrs. Clinton, a Democrat, attached to a Senate bill last week extending Project Liberty, which provides counseling to FDNY and NYPD personnel affected by the terror attacks.

After the amendment passed, Mrs. Clinton sought Mr. Pataki’s help persuading House leaders to sign off on the funding. Mr. Pataki declined, explaining in a Wednesday letter to Denis Hughes, head of the New York AFL-CIO that Mrs. Clinton’s money was already set aside for use by New York City.

“While [Clinton’s] move to redirect $4.45 million in FEMA funds is a well intentioned effort to support this vital program, I am concerned that redirecting federal dollars that have already been allocated to other purposes does not solve either the short term or long term funding needs of this program,” Mr. Pataki wrote in a Wednesday letter to Mr. Hughes.

– Associated Press

BRONX

STUDENT STABBED AT PLAYGROUND

A student at Kennedy High School in the Bronx was stabbed yesterday at a playground near the school’s campus, police said. Police found the 17-year-old high school freshman at the playground opposite 233 W. 230th St. with a stab wound to the left side of his torso. According to police, the victim was approached by a group of boys, and an altercation began. During the fight, the victim was stabbed.

Two teens were arrested at the scene. Estevez Bonifaciu, 19, and a second suspect, age 14, whose name was withheld by police, were both charged with assault in the second degree. The victim was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital in stable condition. He suffered a punctured lung.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun


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