ALBANY -- The state will seek to revoke the Medicaid license of a Bronx health care facility being run by a former state senator accused of plundering it to fund a lavish lifestyle, an official familiar with the case said Tuesday.
State officials accuse the Soundview clinic of having no "compliance program" that verifies claims to make sure the costs are appropriate, and not filing 2008 and 2009 federal tax forms, a state official told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the action hadn't yet been taken.
Yet by late Tuesday, the state still hadn't acted.
That rankled former Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., the former Democratic senator who founded and still runs Soundview. He is awaiting a fall trial on charges that he misappropriated government funding to support a lavish lifestyle for himself and his family.
Espada told The Associated Press in an interview that Cuomo, who began the probe as attorney general in 2010, is trying to poison the jury pool as part of a political vendetta.
"We know nothing other than the rumors and leaks to the media," Espada said. He said Cuomo is orchestrating "this incredible battle over creating this poster boy of dysfunctionality and corruption in Albany ... and destroying my political career."
"I'm standing, and I'm standing strong," Espada said.
Espada said stories first appearing in the New York Post hurt Soundview's relationships with physicians and patients. He said the health clinic where he continues to draw a $225,000 salary operating on a $14 million annual budget shouldn't be caught in his political fight because 200 workers could lose their jobs and 20,000 patients could lose their clinic.
Espada is accused in federal court of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at restaurants, shows, vacations and a down payment on a Bentley luxury car.
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