LI Nursing Home Sued By AG, Accused Of Widespread Fraud, Neglect

EAST MEADOW, NY — The New York attorney general's office filed a lawsuit Tuesday against an East Meadow nursing home, accusing the company and its owners of engaging in financial fraud and widespread neglect of its residents.

The wide-ranging lawsuit was filed against Fulton Commons Care Center, its owners, related parties, their owners, and its former administrators. The fraud led to insufficient staffing levels at the facility, as well as significant resident neglect, mistreatment, and abuse, Attorney General Letitia James said.

Fulton Commons’ owners repeatedly disregarded laws designed to protect nursing home residents and exploited New York’s Medicaid program to enrich themselves, rather than use those funds to provide care and the staffing necessary to deliver it, the lawsuit said.

“Fulton Commons failed its residents and denied them the basic right of receiving comfortable, competent, and respectful care at the facility entrusted to serve them,” James said. “Rather than honor their legal duty to ensure the highest-possible quality of life for the residents in their care, the Fulton Commons owners allegedly maintained insufficient staffing so they could take more money for their own personal gain. These actions led to a devastating pattern of resident abuse, neglect, and mistreatment.”

Patch reached out to the parent company for comment and will update when we hear back.

This is the second time in a month that James has brought action against Fulton Commons.

On Nov. 30, Daniel Persaud, 67, of Lynbrook, a former licensed practical nurse at Fulton Commons, was charged after prosecutors said he sexually abused a resident. His supervisor, Carol Frawley, 69, of North Babylon, a former director of nursing at Fulton Commons, was charged with covering up the abuse, James said.

The companies named in the suit are The New Fulton Commons Company LLC, which provides administrative services to Fulton Commons; Fulton Commons Realty Co. LP (Fulton Realty A), which owns the property on which Fulton Commons sits; Fulton Commons Realty Co. Inc. (Fulton Realty B), which is an owner of Fulton Realty A; and New Bridge View Company LLC, which claims to provide bookkeeping services to Fulton Commons.

Also named is Moshe Kalter, principal owner of Fulton Commons; Kalter’s wife Frady Kalter; Kalter’s brother-in-law Aaron Fogel, and his wife Esther Fogel; Kalter’s eight adult children, Mindy Steger, Sheindy Saffer, Chana Kanarek, Dovid Kalter, Yitzchok Kalter, Aryeh Kalter, Sheva Treff, and Chaya “Sara” Lieberman; Kalter’s nephew Steven Weiss, Fulton Commons’ Comptroller; and Cathie Doyle, Fulton Commons’ administrator until Nov. 16, 2022.

From Jan. 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2021, Fulton Commons received $105.8 million from Medicare and Medicaid for resident care. Of that, just $47.3 million — less than half — was used for resident care, prosecutors said.

More than $34 million was used to pay inflated "rent" to Fulton Realty A, an amount that far exceeded its actual property expenses, the attorney general said. In total, the owners of Fulton Commons paid themselves about $15 million through this scheme of fraudulent rent payments while evading disclosure and approval by the Department of Health, James said.

Moshe Kalter paid fraudulent "salaries" to his eight children, who were each 1 percent owners of Fulton Commons, for no-show jobs, the suit also alleged. From 2018-2021, James said Kalter paid more than $1 million to his children.

In addition to the fraud, Fulton Commons neglected and abused its residents, who lacked proper supervision and care, resulting in unanswered calls and cries for help; unexplained bruising, cuts and other injuries. Residents also missed medical treatments and dosages of medication; experienced soiled, unchanged briefs and humiliating missed trips to the bathroom; and sexual abuse, the attorney general said.

Because there was not enough staff to provide care at the 280-bed facility, Fulton Commons restrained residents, including physically tying them to wheelchairs and drugging them with medications, James said. Residents and their families cited numerous other deficiencies in care, such as Fulton Commons’ failure to provide basic bodily and dental hygiene or nutritional management, James said. Some families resorted to bribing staff to try to get care for their family members, and one woman reported that she hired a private aide to sit with her father in his room at Fulton Commons overnight.

In one instance, a woman was admitted to Fulton Commons for rehabilitation and care after having her foot amputated due to diabetes. When she rang her call bell, it often went unanswered, and as a result, she missed medication doses or sat in soiled briefs for prolonged periods of time, James said. In January 2020, her remaining foot developed an infection which progressed until her entire foot turned black from necrosis. When she died 10 months later November, her healthcare proxy arrived at Fulton Commons and attempted to see her, but was told her condition was not severe enough to merit an in-person visit, James said. She died less than two hours later.

The abuse grew worse during the COVID pandemic, James said. In early 2020, Cathie Doyle, the former administrator, issued a directive saying there was no COVID in the facility and ordering staff not to discuss COVID infections, James said. She also issued misleading robocalls to the families of residents, claiming the facility was free of COVID, James said.

In reality, dozens of residents died of COVID, but Fulton Commons underreported the deaths, James said. Reports the facility issued to the Health Department showed only 40 residents died from COVID, but the facility's own records show that 74 residents died from the virus, according to James. In a 72-hour period, a third of the residents in a single unit died from COVID, but Fulton Commons only reported one COVID death, James said, and that was only because the resident had tested positive at a hospital after their family demanded they be transferred.

According to James, Fulton Commons did not test any of its residents for COVID until June 2020, when the Health Department sent representatives directly to the facility to conduct the tests. When Doyle thought the department would conduct an in-person inspection of the facility, James said she ordered a mass room swap the evening before to hide the fact that Fulton Commons didn't implement quarantine and infection-control measures. As a result, Fulton Commons moved residents into rooms that had not been properly cleaned, exposing them to COVID-19 and other infections, James said.

The lawsuit is seeking multiple remedies for Fulton Commons and its former owners, including:

• Ordering Fulton Commons to remove the facility’s current medical director and replace him with a qualified physician
• Prohibit Fulton Commons from admitting any new residents unless and until staffing levels meet appropriate standards
• Require Fulton Commons to engage and pay for a financial monitor to oversee the facility’s financial operations
• Require Fulton Commons to engage and pay for a healthcare monitor to oversee the facility’s healthcare operations and ensure residents’ outcomes improve
• Direct all respondents to fully disgorge any and all funds wrongfully received as part of the scheme
• Direct all respondents, corporate and individual, with the exception of Fulton Commons, to reimburse the state for the cost of the investigation

Fulton Commons was purchased a few months ago by The Grand Healthcare.