BY MICHAEL AMON
June 17, 2008 p. A6

As lawmakers consider overhauling the state’s doctor discipline system, records show that New York – more than any other state – relies on medical investigations conducted elsewhere to punish physicians.

What’s more, among the 10 states with the most doctors, New York ranks ninth for punishing physicians through its own investigations, sanctioning 2.10 doctors per 1,000 in 2007. Florida, by contrast, disciplined 5.91 doctors per 1,000.

Of the 311 disciplinary actions taken by the New York Board for Professional Medical Conduct in 2007, 173, or 56 percent, did not stem from in-state probes but from “reciprocal actions” – sanctions taken against doctors punished first by other states. Called “piggybacking” by reform groups, these actions require minimal investigation and are rarely challenged by physicians.

“It becomes an issue of productivity,” said Arthur Levin, director of the Center for Medical Consumers in Manhattan. “When we want to look at how proactive New York is, all we know is that they’re very good at finding the bad doctors in other states but not necessarily here.”

Numbers may hinder effort

New York actually punished more doctors than any state but Illinois last year, but those figures include the piggybacked investigations. Patient advocates say the statistics make New York’s physician discipline board look deceptively aggressive and could hurt efforts to change the system, including Gov. David A. Paterson’s proposal now being considered by the legislature.

Claudia Hutton, a state Department of Health spokeswoman, said New York punishes fewer doctors on its own because under state law, investigators must prove at least two instances of negligence or wrongdoing – not one as in many other states. She also said staffing levels were stagnant at the Office of Professional Medical Conduct, which investigates cases for the Board for Professional Medical Conduct.

“We do the best we can with our staffing levels,” Hutton said, noting that OPMC received funding to hire 15 more investigators this year, bringing the total to 84. “I think you will see different numbers over the next few years.”

Hutton added that it’s important for the state to pursue actions against doctors sanctioned elsewhere. “We don’t want that physician returning here to practice,” Hutton said.

Paterson’s plan

Paterson’s bill would encourage more local probes by allowing the Office of Professional Medical Conduct to use malpractice histories to initiate cases. It also would make public the names of doctors charged with wrongdoing and make it easier to go after doctors who refuse to turn over records for probes. The law was proposed following criticism that OPMC and the Department of Health were too lenient with Dr. Harvey Finkelstein, the Long Island doctor accused of reusing syringes.

The proposal’s chances are unclear, legislative aides and advocates say. Legislative leaders and the governor’s representatives today will try to hammer out an agreement.

Taking a closer look

“When New York is touted as the state with the highest numbers, it makes it harder to make the case for reform,” said Blair Horner, legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group. “You have to look at the numbers a little harder.”

New York is not alone in pursuing out-of-state cases. Since 2003, when Dallas-based trade group the Federation of State Medical Boards began alerting states to sanctions of doctors with multiple licenses, reciprocal actions have risen 37 percent. The actions are universally praised for preventing bad doctors from jumping from state to state.

“You can’t be against reciprocal actions, they’re a good thing,” said David Swankin, president of the Citizens Advocacy Center in Washington, D.C. “The question is – what are they doing besides reciprocals?”

New York has long piggybacked on the work of other state’s doctor-disciplinary systems. Since 2004, 61 percent of its sanctions have been initiated in other states. From 1990 to 2006, New York, along with Pennsylvania and Hawaii, were the only states to punish more out-of-state doctors than in-state ones, according to the National Practitioners Data Bank.

One explanation: New York’s medical schools train about 15 percent of the nation’s doctors. They often keep a medical license here but practice – and get disciplined – somewhere else.

When a New York-licensed doctor is sanctioned elsewhere, the state moves quickly to restrict their practice here, Hutton said. Three full-time OPMC staff members and one part-timer are assigned to handle reciprocal actions.

Out-of-state probes easier

Disciplinary cases from other states are easier to process, Hutton said. They don’t have to be reinvestigated by New York staff. Instead, the out-of-state action is reviewed to ensure that it constituted misconduct under New York law. The doctor can challenge the findings, but most do not, Hutton said.

As for punishing fewer doctors than other big states, one reason may be that New York places hundreds of physicians with substance abuse problems into a monitoring system that is the nation’s most extensive. The roughly 1,400 doctors now in the system are required to get treatment and to allow doctors chosen by the state to track their progress, Hutton said. In other states, many of those doctors would have been disciplined.

“New York has a more progressive model, and frankly I believe in the long run it provides for better care for more patients,” said Dr. Michael Rosenberg, president of the Medical Society of the State of New York.

Staffing levels an issue

Finally, Hutton blamed staffing levels, saying the number of investigators had remained flat at around 69 for several years, even as complaints surged from 6,275 in 2003 to more than 7,300 in 2005 – second only to Florida. Each complaint, she said, must be investigated, taking an average of 230 days.

Even without the staff increase this year, though, New York had the second-largest investigative team in the country, behind only California.

Other states appear more productive with smaller staffs. The State Medical Board of Ohio regulates 40,000 doctors – half as many as New York. But with 21 investigators, it disciplined 160 physicians in locally generated cases last year, compared with 138 in New York. North Carolina, with 10 investigators, disciplined 129 doctors on its own initiative last year, while cutting in half the number of reciprocal actions it took from 83 in 2006 to 41.

North Carolina Medical Board spokeswoman Jean Fisher Brinkley said questions had been raised about whether reciprocal actions “were the best use of resources.” With more locally generated cases, she said, “the relevance to people in our state was greater.”

BEHIND NEW YORK’S DOCTOR DISCIPLINE SYSTEM

Much more than other states with a lot of doctors, New York issues sanctions that stem from other states’ investigations – cases known as “reciprocal” or piggyback actions.

Critics say it exaggerates the state’s doctor discipline statistics and hurts chances for toughening the system.

State says it pursues reciprocal actions to keep bad doctors from returning to New York.

State generates fewer in-state doctor-discipline cases than other states. One reason: New York must prove two bad acts by doctors here before punishment kicks in – many other states require just one.

THE PROCESS

The New York physician discipline process can begin several ways.

The Office of Professional Medical Conduct can file charges when it learns that a doctor has been disciplined in another state or convicted of a crime. The charges are reviewed to ensure that they constitute misconduct under the state’s Public Health Law.

Then doctors are offered a settlement agreement but have the right to a hearing before the Board of Professional Medical Conduct. Most waive the hearing and settle, officials said.

Doctors can also be investigated when a complaint is filed by a member of the public. Each complaint is checked by one of 84 investigators.

Most of the more than 7,000 complaints filed each year are dismissed but they can lead to formal charges. After being charged, doctors are offered a chance to settle, or plead guilty. They also have the right to a hearing before a three-member panel made up of two doctors and a non-doctor. The burden of proof is preponderance of the evidence.

BY MICHAEL AMON AND RIDGELY OCHS
Sept. 23, 2007 p. A7
Benjamin Landa and Bent Philipson have built the largest nursing home network in the state with good timing, smart business moves and the right contacts.

In 1987, Landa bought his first nursing home – a facility in Far Rockaway – from his late father’s estate. A few years later, as he acquired more nursing homes, he started raising money for political candidates from both major parties. By 1994, he was a top fundraiser for future Gov. George Pataki said Jeffrey Weisenfeld, a former Pataki aide.

Then in 1996, Pataki named Landa to the Public Health Council, a state board with broad powers to approve health care facility projects, including nursing homes. That year, Landa teamed up with Philipson, who was a supervisor in one of his nursing homes.

During Landa’s eight-year tenure on the council, Landa,Philipson or their wives secured the purchase of 20 nursing homes and became the state’s leading players in the nursing home industry. They now run 25 facilities.

“Their approach is new,” said Neil Heyman, president of the Southern New York Association, a trade group of 64 nursing homes. He added that nursing homes in New York historically had been family run businesses. “They are part of a general trend toward giving nursing home organizations corporate names and structures.”

SentosaCare does not own or run the facilities, which have about 80 investors with Landa, Philipson or their spouses as the common denominator. Rather, the company centralizes administrative functions and provides a brand-name marketing tool.

Their strategy is the only way to, in effect, form a nursing home chain in New York state, said health care experts. Legislation passed after Medicaid fraud and patient abuse scandals in the 1970s required all nursing home investors to be vetted by the state. The laws essentially banned publicly-traded nursing home chains because of the impossibility of vetting thousands of investors behind publicly traded companies.

As the group grew, many nursing home owners said Landa’s council position and friendship with Pataki helped his projects.

In 2003, the owners of 15 nursing homes complained to the Health Department about a replacement facility for Landa’s Brookhaven Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Far Rockaway being pushed ahead of their own languishing construction projects.

“We are mystified and disturbed that Brookhaven’s application might be given expedited treatment over those other worthy providers,” wrote Carl S. Young, president of the New York Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, in a May 21, 2003, letter to the State Hospital Review and Planning Council, which reviews nursing home projects before the Public Health Council. The project has not moved forward.

Landa recused himself from decisions on his projects and said his council post was “irrelevant to my business strategy.”

Landa said the Pataki administration, generally, was “detrimental to my company’s bottom line,” with its insistence on cuts to Medicaid reimbursements. But Landa’s net worth increased from $7 million to $65 million while Pataki was governor, according to documents filed with the state health department.

A Pataki spokesman did not return calls seeking comment.

Landa, 51, and Philipson, 41, made their flurry of nursing home purchases in the late 1990s, just as many older operators were retiring and cashing out, said Richard Herrick, the president of the New York State Health Facilities Association.

Herrick said he had never seen a group of investors in New York buy so many nursing homes so quickly. State health department records indicate that the facilities’ annual revenues are at least $450 million.

BY MICHAEL AMON
March 16, 2008 P. A8
Cloistered in his Manhattan apartment last Sunday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer listened as his wife, Silda Wall, and his closest adviser, Lloyd Constantine, urged him not to resign.

Allegations that he used high-priced call girls would be public in less than 24 hours, but Wall and Constantine argued that Spitzer could weather a sex scandal, just as other politicians with popular platforms had, according to several knowledgeable sources.

Look at President Bill Clinton, they said, whose poll numbers remained high despite impeachment efforts. And remember, they told Spitzer, that he was elected with nearly 70 percent of the vote in 2006.

Spitzer initially heeded their advice, but by Tuesday evening – after several public relations firms told him there was no way to repair his image – he had decided he had no choice but to resign, said advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity. But Wall and Constantine continued pleading with him to remain in office, advisers said, right up until Wednesday morning when he delivered his resignation on national television.

“I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me,” he said.

Spitzer officially hands over power to Lt. Gov. David Paterson tomorrow at 1 p.m., but friends and aides say he has not been in charge since Wednesday, rarely leaving his apartment and forgoing his daily jogs in Central Park.

The seeds of his spectacular fall were sown last year, when a routine report filed by his bank sparked a federal investigation into unusual transfers from his account to “shell” companies for a prostitution ring. His fate was sealed after wiretaps caught him arranging a Feb. 13 tryst in Washington.

It was an especially ignominious end for Democrat Spitzer, the square-jawed former prosecutor who swept into the Executive Mansion 14 months ago vowing to clean house. The reforms he promised had hit a series of setbacks – a nationwide furor over a proposal to give driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants; and a probe into using the State Police to spy on his rival, State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a Republican.

Yet many believed Spitzer was making a comeback. The Republican Senate majority had shrunk to a single seat with a win last month by Spitzer’s hand-picked candidate. He had raised $3 million in the second half of 2007.

Though he could not know it, any momentum Spitzer had was effectively stopped on Thursday, March 6, when the leaders of the Emperors Club VIP, an alleged international prostitution ring, were arraigned in federal court in Manhattan.

Up to $5,500 an hour

According to federal prosecutors, the Emperors Club VIP catered to those willing – and able – to pay up to $5,500 to spend an hour with the attractive women who could be chosen from an online gallery.

With its elements of sex, wealth and intrigue, news of the arrests spread as far as Australia, where a story headlined “Elite Escorts Busted” ran in the March 9 Sunday Mail. But few knew the true focus of that investigation: an alleged sometime john known in court papers as “Client 9″ who was actually the governor of New York.

The FBI and the IRS had begun investigating Spitzer in October, law enforcement sources said, when two banks reported unusual activity. First, North Fork reported that Spitzer had tried to break down large wire transfers into amounts smaller than $10,000, seemingly to get around federal reporting rules, sources said. Spitzer then unsuccessfully asked North Fork to remove his name from the wire transfers.

In another case, HSBC reported that a group of companies that had established accounts were apparently shells – under the names QAT Consulting Group, QAT International, and Protech Consultants – that might be involved in some sort of illegal activities.

The unusual bank activity might have gone unnoticed – hundreds of thousands of such reports are filed a year – but the HSBC and North Fork reports ended up with the same analyst at an IRS office in Hauppauge, sources said.

By January, a judge had authorized tapping Emperors Club phones. On Feb. 13, when Spitzer was in Washington to testify before the House Financial Services Committee, he was overheard making elaborate arrangements for a successful rendezvous with a prostitute with the pseudonym “Kristen.” Sources said he’d had seven or eight dates with Emperors Club call girls in the last year.

On Friday, March 7, federal investigators told Spitzer that he’d been overheard on wiretaps. But over the next two days, he appeared to behave as if nothing was amiss, conducting conference calls and attending public events, according to aides and his public schedule.

On Saturday, apparently unaware that a New York Times reporter was outside his Fifth Avenue apartment, he went for a jog. He and his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, took their dogs for a walk, the Times reported.

Later, Spitzer traveled on Amtrak to Washington, D.C., for the annual Gridiron Club dinner, where he swapped jokes with media executives like News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch and Donald Graham of The Washington Post, said Stanford Lipsey, the Buffalo News publisher who invited the governor. Spitzer shook countless hands and watched President George W. Bush perform a self-mocking song-and-dance number.

“He had a terrific time,” Lipsey recalled.

He seemed ‘very keyed up”

Pollster Lee Miringoff said he chatted with Spitzer for about 10 minutes about the governor’s low approval ratings. Spitzer assured him that by November, his numbers would rise, Miringoff said. But Spitzer seemed subtly off.

“He was very keyed up, but in a manicky kind of way,” Miringoff said. “I asked a question, and before I got two words in, I was getting an answer. … He really was very much dominating the conversation.”

Spitzer left the party at midnight and spent the night in Washington. Though he had taken the train there, he came back by car on Sunday, aides said.

The illusion that everything was still OK began falling apart.

The Times began making inquiries Sunday, aides said, and that afternoon, Spitzer told his wife of 20 years and three teenage daughters about the accusations. He then informed top aides, and intense discussions about the governor’s options began at his apartment.

That afternoon, Gerald Lefcourt, a prominent New York City defense attorney, spotted Spitzer and his youngest daughter walking the dog through Central Park. Spitzer didn’t seem to have any security detail around him, Lefcourt said, and he seemed dejected.

Back in the apartment, Constantine and Wall began urging Spitzer to fight the inevitable calls for his resignation, but no decision was made. On Monday morning, top aide Richard Baum told staff of the controversy, and Spitzer called Lt. Gov. David Paterson.

So many reporters showed up for Spitzer’s news conference Monday that some were turned away for fear of violating fire codes. News Web sites crashed. Cable networks flashed endless footage of the governor as newscasters wondered aloud: Would he resign?

An hour late, the governor and his wife arrived, glassy-eyed and looking dazed. Wall stared at the text of the short speech Spitzer read from as he apologized for what he vaguely called a “private matter.”

“I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and that violates my – or any – sense of right and wrong,” he said.

Declining to take questions, he and his wife quickly left the room.

In Spitzer’s office, the atmosphere was “funereal,” said one staffer. On Wall Street, where Spitzer had collected scalps from his days as attorney general, there were cheers, including on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

In Albany, the reaction was more complicated. Shock, fascination, confusion, and of course, some delight at the downfall of the man who called himself a “steamroller.”

“Everyone was glued to their BlackBerries,” a legislative aide said.

Calls for governor’s resignation

The political equation for the unpopular governor quickly became clear. Republican lawmakers began calling for his resignation, and soon, some Democrats joined the chorus.

On Monday night, many Democrats began preparing for Spitzer’s resignation. The exclusive neighborhood outside his apartment – Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s home and the Metropolitan Museum of Art are nearby – became clogged with reporters, satellite trucks and curious onlookers.

Instead, Spitzer appeared to dig in. He canceled all events and hired a high-powered white-collar defense attorney. Friends and colleagues came and went, but neither Spitzer nor his wife emerged from their home. He tried to hire public relations firms, said one source, but they turned him down – there was nothing they could do.

By Tuesday afternoon, sources said, Spitzer reached the decision nearly everyone predicted: He could not continue as governor and must resign. Preparing for the end, he wrote his last speech as a politician and took a few calls.

“We’re all a group of friends, still, and we’re trying to take care of each other,” said one confidant.

On Wednesday morning, Spitzer and his wife stood again, wan and humiliated, before a bank of cameras. He apologized, confirmed he was resigning and said, someday, he would work again for the public good – “outside of politics.”

He did not take questions. The couple walked out, not touching, and it was over.

This article was reported by MELANIE LEFKOWITZ, ROBERT E. KESSLER, CRAIG GORDON, DAN JANISON, JAMES T. MADORE, ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO and MICHAEL AMON. It was written by AMON.

BY MICHAEL AMON
Feb. 27, 2008 P. A4
The Child Protective Services workers assigned to investigate a complaint against Leatrice Brewer on Friday did not know of her extensive criminal record, mental health history and frequent appearances in Family Court, Nassau County officials said yesterday.

Blocking their efforts: a combination of Nassau Department of Social Services policies and state and federal laws that do not allow the sharing of personal information across government agencies.

“We are unable to capture the information that we want,” said Mary Curtis, the deputy county executive for health and human services.

State privacy laws blocked the agency from contacting the county Department of Mental Health, Chemical Dependency and Developmental Disability to act on the warnings from family and friends that Brewer was mentally ill, said Karen Garber, program coordinator for the Department of Social Services.

Nassau officials said they don’t know whether having access to a comprehensive history of Brewer’s hundreds of contacts with at least 12 government agencies and nonprofit social service providers would have prevented the drowning of her three young children Sunday.

Nevertheless, they are training new scrutiny on policies that limit the investigative scope of CPS workers to the complaint before them – and prevent them from tapping other agencies for important insights such as drug use, criminal behavior and mental health.

“It’s very difficult to deal with one component of a person in a vacuum,” Garber said. “It makes it difficult to come up with an appropriate plan for a person.”

On Friday, when the father of Brewer’s two sons complained that she was threatening the children, CPS caseworkers did not know or were prevented from knowing the following pieces of information:

She had been arrested seven times in the last seven years.

She had been referred for a mental health evaluation this month when she reapplied for welfare benefits.

She had been referred to nonprofit organizations that provide mental health and substance abuse programs.

She was involved in heated child custody disputes with two ex-boyfriends who had accused her of neglect.

The limited information available to caseworkers included a history of her contacts with CPS. It showed six of the nine cases opened against her were unfounded, while the other three involved relatively minor infractions, officials said.

“Generally speaking, the children seemed well cared for,” Curtis said. “They were clothed, they were fed, they were going to school, the apartment was well taken care of.”

In April 2003, when the first CPS case was opened on Brewer, caseworkers could not take into account that she had been charged with felony assault and criminal possession of a weapon that month. The charge was later reduced to harassment in September 2003 and she served 4 days in jail. The social services complaint, which officials declined to disclose, was determined to be unfounded and closed in August that year, officials said.

Of the first seven cases opened against Brewer, six were unfounded complaints, officials said. But the two most recent cases, both opened in the last year, showed evidence that she did not adequately supervise the children, though officials said CPS workers may not have had enough information to take appropriate action.

On June 20, an anonymous caller alerted social services to Brewer, who was sleeping in her car while her kids played unattended in a school playground, officials said. Then, on Oct. 20, her oldest child, Jewell Ward, 6, told a caseworker that she was supervising her younger brothers while her mother was out.

Both cases were closed, the most recent on Dec. 12, Garber said, after a caseworker admonished Brewer to not leave her children home alone.

A CHRONOLOGY OF COMPLAINTS

Nassau County Child Protective Services opened 10 cases in the last five years on Leatrice Brewer and her children. Six were closed as “unfounded,” three were closed after neglect was “indicated,” then remedied, and the most recent remains open.

APRIL 15, 2003 County opens first case on Brewer and treatment of her oldest child, Jewell Ward, then 1. Closed on Aug. 4, 2003, as unfounded.

JAN. 13, 2004 Nassau police respond to a 911 call at Brewer’s home and arrest her boyfriend, Innocent Demesyeux, for allegedly assaulting her in front of her two children. Child Protective Services also responds and finds “inadequate guardianship.” Caseworkers visit Brewer and children 10 times, and case is closed on March 11, after Brewer obtains an order of protection against Demesyeux. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor attempted assault.

DEC. 22, 2004 Neglect case opened for undisclosed reasons. Case closed on March 22, 2005, as unfounded.

OCT. 20, 2005 Police respond to 911 call made by Brewer. After doing laundry in the basement, she returned upstairs to find her two children missing. Police contact CPS but soon learn that the children’s great-grandmother had taken the children. Complaint was deemed unfounded on Dec. 12.

JAN. 7, 2006 Police respond to 911 call by the children’s great-grandmother, who said Brewer had slapped Jewell. CPS is contacted. Police and caseworkers find no physical injuries or marks indicating abuse. County officials say state law allows corporal punishment. Case deemed unfounded on April 7.

SEPT. 26, 2006 Neglect case opened for undisclosed reasons. Case closed on Oct. 21 as unfounded.

MARCH 15, 2007 Neglect case opened for undisclosed reasons. Case closed as unfounded.

JUNE 20, 2007 An anonymous caller reported that Brewer was sleeping in her car as her children played in a school playground. CPS caseworkers visited Brewer “a handful of times” and cited her for inadequate supervision. No action was deemed needed and the case was closed on August 7.

OCT. 20, 2007 After an undisclosed caller reported Brewer for leaving her children at home, a CPS caseworker interviewed Jewell, who said she often makes popcorn for her brothers and watches scary movies when her mother is gone. CPS cited Brewer for inadequate supervision and advised Brewer to not leave her children at home alone, telling her to ask neighbors for help.

FEB. 22 Innocent Demesyeux, father of Brewer’s two sons, called the State Central Registry for child abuse to report that Brewer “is threatening to put the children outside” on a cold, snowy day, is using drugs and is leaving the children home alone. Two CPS caseworkers visit the home that day, but find no one home. A caseworker is assigned to visit Sunday, by which time the children are dead.

BY MICHAEL AMON
April 2, 2008 p. A22
ALBANY – In the days after his report touched off the Choppergate scandal, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo picked up the phone and made a delicate call.

On the other line was Sandy Dopp, a close friend of 20 years and the wife of Darren Dopp, the Eliot Spitzer spokesman suspended after Cuomo’s report in July on the use of the New York State Police to smear Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. Cuomo named Darren Dopp – who did not speak to his investigators – as one of several officials who acted inappropriately.

On the phone with Sandy Dopp, Cuomo told her that her husband was taking too much blame for the scandal and should tell his side of the story to the attorney general’s office, said three people familiar with that call. Cuomo made multiple calls to Sandy Dopp last August and September.

But aides said Cuomo only discussed personal issues with Sandy Dopp and they contend there was nothing improper about the calls because Darren Dopp’s lawyers did not object. The calls offer a fuller picture of attempts to speak to Dopp, who eventually contradicted Spitzer’s denials of involvement in Choppergate.

The calls to Sandy Dopp came at the same time that a number of investigatory agencies were jockeying for interviews with her husband. Cuomo’s chief of staff, Steven Cohen, was negotiating an interview with Darren Dopp through his attorney, Terence Kindlon, as were Albany prosecutors, the Public Integrity Commission and the Senate Investigations Committee.

The phone calls briefly intrigued Albany prosecutors, who questioned Sandy Dopp about them in February during their Choppergate probe. District Attorney David Soares said he found nothing improper, and the calls were not part of his Choppergate report.

Because calling the wife of a witness represented by counsel could, under certain conditions, violate New York State ethics laws, Cuomo took elaborate precautions before calling Sandy Dopp, even though she was a close friend, his aides said. A top aide sat in on each call last summer, and Darren Dopp’s lawyers did not object, Cohen said. Those efforts complied with the law, experts said.

The calls came at a rough time for the Dopps, whom Cuomo had counted as friends since Darren’s stint working as an aide for his father, Gov. Mario Cuomo. Darren was the only Spitzer staffer punished for Choppergate, and friends said they were worried.

“Sandy was, you know, very upset, understandably, by everything that was happening around her,” said Kindlon.

In the calls, Sandy Dopp complained to Cuomo that her husband was being made “the fall guy,” said Cohen, who sat next to Cuomo during some calls. Cohen quoted Cuomo replying that: “All one can ever do in such situations is tell the truth – the truth will set you free.”

According to people familiar with the calls, Cuomo also replied that he could reopen his investigation and hear Darren Dopp’s side of the story. Cuomo’s aides disputed that version of events, however.

Cohen said the calls were “humanitarian” and related to “how the Dopp family was coping.” In a rare public statement, Dopp said his wife “very much appreciated the Attorney General’s concern and graciousness during a difficult time.”

Through his attorney, Dopp declined the attorney general’s office’s overtures last year and instead spoke with county prosecutors and the Public Integrity Commission.

BY MICHAEL AMON
Jan. 21, 2009 p. A3

Before Flight 1549 ditched into the Hudson River, the Federal Aviation Administration had ordered heightened inspection procedures for the type of engine on that aircraft, saying it was prone to a rare type of stall, federal records show.

News of the Dec. 31 FAA Airworthiness Directive yesterday came as federal investigators said they were probing a Jan. 13 mid-flight engine stall on the Airbus A320 just two days before it crash-landed in the Hudson River alongside Manhattan on Thursday. The crew corrected the Jan. 13 problem in the air and safely completed its journey from LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators want to talk to the pilot of that flight, said spokesman Peter Knudson. But he said nothing so far found has contradicted the working theory that a bird strike caused the plane’s engines to shut down Thursday. The directive warned such compressor stalls – a disruption of airflow into the engine causing an abrupt shutdown and violent shuddering of the plane – were “likely to exist or develop on” the CFM56-5B engine series, two of which powered Flight 1549. The warning was issued without a public comment period because “an unsafe condition exists,” the directive said.

Experts said such stalls are unusual in modern jet engines.

“We have not found any indications of anomalies or malfunctions with the aircraft from the time it left the gate in LaGuardia [last Thursday\] to the point at which the pilots reported a bird strike and a loss of engine power,” Knudson said.

The FAA directive ordered airlines to conduct detailed inspections when both engines record temperatures above a certain threshold and required the removal of at least one of those engines, even if it passes inspection. Officials would not say whether Flight 1549’s engine turbines underwent the required inspection with an optical instrument that allows maintenance workers to see inside the engine.

“It’s like colonoscopy, almost. You can look down in there and see if there is any damage to the blades,” said Ted Steffens, an airline maintenance expert with Expert Aviation Consulting in Indiana.

Rick Kennedy, a spokesman for GE-Aviation, which co-owns engine manufacturer CFM International, said 12 of the more than 3,000 CFM56-5B series engines had running temperatures above the threshold. All of them were older, like those on Flight 1549, and some were no longer in service.

About 10 aircraft with such engines experienced compressor stalls last year, leading CFM International to issue a safety bulletin, he said. But he said compressor stalls are unrelated to what occurred on Flight 1549.

Spokesmen for the FAA and US Airways declined to comment. Airbus did not respond to messages.

Aviation experts said the plane’s apparent engine stall problems were likely a coincidence with little significance for the probe. John Cox, a former US Airways pilot and now president of Safety Operating Systems, a Washington aviation consulting firm, said a susceptibility to compressor stalls “would not affect the ability to take a bird strike,” especially since the plane’s engines were not designed to handle ingestion of large birds like the Canada geese suspected in Thursday’s crash.

The cockpit voice recorder, flight data recorder and transcripts of air traffic control conversations show that the plane lost power to both engines about one second after the pilots reported a bird strike.

Meanwhile, the search for the plane’s missing right engine appeared to progress yesterday afternoon, as police boats spotted an object about the same size as the lost engine about 60 feet deep in the middle of the river off West 52nd Street, New York City police said. Divers are to resume the search today.

On a large salvage barge at Weeks Marine in Jersey City yesterday, inspectors opened the aircraft’s nose cone to examine electrical devices inside. They drew large red circles on the nose portion of the fuselage, apparently to indicate possible bird strikes.

Staff writers Andrew Strickler and Anthony M. DeStefano contributed to this story.

BY MICHAEL AMON
July 30, 2009 p. A3
As Warren Hance desperately tried Sunday to call back his sister, Diane Schuler, her cell phone lay useless on the side of the New York State Thruway. It had been inexplicably abandoned after she told him she was disoriented and having trouble seeing, State Police said.

Investigators said yesterday they believe Schuler, of West Babylon, had crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge into Westchester County and stopped the minivan in a pull-off area just after the tolls to call her brother.

That’s apparently the last contact anyone had with Schuler before she drove her Ford minivan the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway, causing a fiery crash that killed eight people, said State Police Investigator James Boyle.

The dead include Schuler, 36, and her daughter, Erin, 2, of West Babylon; Hance’s daughters, Emma, 8, Alyson, 7, and Kate, 5, of Floral Park; and three Yonkers men in an SUV, Daniel Longo, 74, Michael Bastardi, 81, and his son Guy Bastardi, 49.

The lone survivor, Schuler’s son, Bryan, 5, continued to recover yesterday at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, N.Y., a hospital spokesman said.

The crash came just a half-hour after Hance and family friends frantically called State Police around 1 p.m. and asked them to look for the red Ford Windstar minivan Schuler was driving. Two troopers were assigned to the search immediately, Boyle said.

Investigators are not sure how Schuler’s cell phone ended up in the pull-off area, but Boyle said she probably called Hance from there just before 1 p.m. Sunday. That’s because Emma Hance, in a brief talk with her father, said they were near the Tappan Zee Bridge and saw exits for Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. Signs for those places are visible from the pull off.

The phone was discovered Sunday by a motorist from New Jersey who turned it in to the Palisades Parkway police. New York State Police investigators got the cell phone Monday but haven’t looked at what numbers Schuler dialed, as they await subpoenas. Police said the family has been cooperative but technically only a subpoena gives them legal authority to get cell phone records.

Schuler’s behavior has puzzled investigators because she appeared to be a healthy and responsible mother and professional advertising saleswoman for Cablevision, which owns Newsday.

Hunter Lake Campground owner Ann Scott said Schuler left with her husband, Danny Schuler, a security guard at Old Bethpage Village, late Sunday morning and there appeared to be nothing wrong.

Boyle said Danny Schuler was headed for a fishing trip in another part of Sullivan County and was out of cell phone range when Schuler said she became ill.

Police are awaiting toxicology tests on Schuler’s autopsy, hoping the results will provide a medical explanation for the crash. She had no known medical problems.

Police are trying to retrace Schuler’s steps after she crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge, but have not heard from any witnesses who saw her before she turned onto the Taconic. Police asked anyone who saw a red 2003 Ford Windstar minivan around midday on Sunday driving or stopped in the area of the Thruway, the Saw Mill River Parkway or the Taconic State Parkway to contact the New York State Police in Hawthorne at 914-769-2600.

With Matthew Chayes

By Michael Amon
Feb. 9, 2009 p. A8
Last May, a youth baseball league offered a complete makeover of a Seaford baseball field owned by the Levittown school district — new artificial turf, a T-ball field, fences, light towers and bleachers. All at no cost to taxpayers.

“It was kind of a no-brainer,” said district superintendent Herman Sirois. The improvements, proposed by the Levittown Seaford Wantagh Athletic Association, and carried out before last summer’s season, were unanimously approved as a gift by the Board of Education on May 13, meeting minutes show.

Now those field improvements are part of a federal probe into what investigators say was a $370-million Ponzi scheme run by Nicholas Cosmo, the president of Hauppauge investment firm Agape World Inc., who was a league board member. Sirois, in an interview last week, said federal officials have not contacted the district, but he would forward all documents regarding the improvements to prosecutors investigating the case.

Cosmo, who is being held on a federal mail-fraud charge in the alleged scam, spent or lost at least $135 million of investors’ money, federal authorities said, including about $300,000 for operating expenses and capital improvements for a youth baseball league he founded. That league, National Tournament Baseball, is the travel part of the Levittown Seaford Wantagh Athletic Association’s baseball program, according to the league Web site.

Federal authorities say Agape purported to be a high-interest lender but in fact made few loans and paid investors with funds from new investors.

Richard Barry, the Levittown Seaford Wantagh Athletic Association’s board vice president, proposed the improvements, Sirois said. Barry, who also is Agape’s executive vice president, has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Representatives for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which has filed the charge against Cosmo, and federal prosecutors declined to comment.

Barry did not respond to messages.

Cosmo’s attorneys declined to comment. Cosmo remains in jail until prosecutors and his attorneys agree upon a bail package. No new court date has been scheduled.

An unsigned statement on the athletic association Web site titled “An urgent message to all members” said it was severing ties to Cosmo. “Mr. Cosmo has been a participant and sponsor of LSWAA activities and over the past several years has donated or provided goods and services to our organization,” the statement said. “LSWAA has never been given any information which would lead the Board of Directors to question the source of these funds.”

Cosmo’s name has been removed from the association’s Web site. According to the federal complaint against him, the Seaford field had a sign citing Agape as a sponsor. The sign is no longer there.

League president Richard Danetti and other board members did not respond to messages.

Sirois said improvements were presented before the alleged Ponzi scheme was unraveled. “There was no reason for us to believe there was anything untoward,” Sirois said.

The school district doesn’t know the value of the improvements or whether they were paid for by Agape, Cosmo or the athletic association, Sirois said.

Sirois said he checked with legal counsel, who said the district probably faced no liability as Agape investors seek their money. “If the gift was accepted in good faith and there’s no cash involved . . . we don’t have anything to return,” he said.

If a link is found between the money used for field improvements and the alleged Ponzi scheme, investors could sue the school district for the fair market value of the improvements, arguing the district “obtained value they didn’t pay for,” said David Gehn, a Manhattan securities attorney with experience investigating Ponzi schemes.

MINEOLA, N.Y., Nov. 23, 2009 – When the seventh and eighth graders of Corpus Christi School entertained seniors at the Mineola Leisure Club last month, a photographer from Newsday was there to feature their efforts for the “Future Corps” section.

Click the link below to see the article, which appeared Nov. 19:

Corpus Christi Students Featured in Newsday!

BY MICHAEL AMON. michael.amon@newsday.com

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A06

LENGTH: 737 words

A probe into Nassau County’s handling of neglect cases against a New Cassel mother charged with drowning her three children in February has been delayed more than two months by uncooperative Child Protective Services employees, the county’s top investigator said.

One CPS worker declined to be interviewed and then, after being subpoenaed by Investigations Commissioner Bonnie Garone, exercised his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself, Garone said.

E-mails have ‘disappeared’

Departmental e-mails sent in the days before and after the children’s Feb. 24 deaths “have mysteriously disappeared,” Garone said, declining to elaborate. And other employees, Garone said, have given inconsistent stories, sending investigators on time-consuming searches to confirm information.

The investigation began on Feb. 26 – two days after siblings Jewell Ward, 6, Michael Demesyeux, 5, and Innocent Demesyeux, 18 months, were drowned one by one in a bathtub – and was supposed to have been completed in 30 days. It followed criticism that CPS and other government agencies did not do enough to protect the children from their mother, Leatrice Brewer, 27, who is charged with murder.

Now county officials say the probe and a written report will be finished by the second week of June – more than two months late.

“This has not taken the course I expected it would,” Garone said. “I’ve never had an employee decline to come in and talk to me.”

Caseworkers afraid to talk

Jerry Laricchiuta, president of the union representing CPS workers, the Civil Service Employees Association, said he knew of the employee who took the Fifth and wasn’t surprised. He said Garone’s investigation had “frightened” many CPS caseworkers, who are afraid of being “scapegoated.”

“Some are just gun shy and afraid to talk,” said Laricchiuta. “They don’t want their name out there. … It’s a defense mechanism.”

He called on Garone to release her report as soon as possible, saying he believes the facts will show caseworkers acted appropriately. CPS’ “reputation is on the line,” he said.

Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi said in a statement he doesn’t want to rush the process. “Three children died and I want to know what, if anything, went wrong,” he said.

Most workers helpful

Garone said the delays have been caused by a handful of employees, adding that most workers were helpful. Karen Garber, a spokeswoman for the Department of Social Services, which includes CPS, declined to answer specific questions. In a statement, she said: “The department is cooperating fully with the commissioner of investigations and as always, we expect our employees to do the same.”

Among the questions Garone said she is trying to answer: Should CPS have removed the children from Brewer’s custody? Should Brewer have been offered additional services? And should CPS caseworkers and supervisors have done anything differently in the days before the children died?

In the past five years, Brewer was accused of neglecting the children 10 times. In three of those cases, CPS found neglect occurred, but that it did not rise to the level of removing the children, officials have said.

Two days before deaths

The last case was opened two days before the drownings – a family member said Brewer was threatening the children – but CPS caseworkers initially could not find Brewer on Feb. 22. Instead of assigning a follow-up visit the next day, the CPS supervisor that night, Eddie Arredondo, scheduled it for Feb. 24. By then it was too late.

Garone would not reveal any of her findings, but the probe will likely have implications for Arredondo, the only county employee punished so far in the case. He was suspended a day after the killings but has since returned to work in a different department. Garone’s findings could force him out of his job.

Laricchiuta said Arredondo followed county policy.

THE STORY SO FAR

THE CASE The Nassau County Department of Investigations is probing how county agencies handled child neglect cases against Leatrice Brewer, 27, who is charged with the Feb. 24 drowning of her children – Jewell Ward, 6, Michael Demesyeux, 5, and Innocent Demesyeux, 18 months.

THE QUESTIONS Under probe by the county investigations commissioner:

Should CPS have removed the children from Brewer’s custody?

Should Brewer have been offered additional services?

Should CPS caseworkers and supervisors have done anything differently in the days before the children died?

Well, I’m stuck home today. Hopefully, it’s just a bad cold, but I really feel lousy. Bad timing, as I was trying to get something done with respect to some excessively disruptive young men in two of my classes. For the very first time in my six years, I unilaterally requested a removal of students from my classroom for the remainder of the week. They get the bulk of my attention because if they don’t, the class gets nothing done. Of course, the class isn’t getting much done anyway when they are present; they see to it quite admirably.
Yesterday, while one of my students valiantly and steadfastly plodded through a passage, two of the young men teased him for his slow reading, did what they could to make him laugh, and did their damnedest to steer instruction off course. But the student who was reading finished.
The trouble is, most of these young people are so literacy-needy that the level of distraction and disruption provided by the most insecure, under-confident, and “damaged” peers impact with particular detriment on the others’ ability to learn and concentrate. We have enough guidance counselors; they just never seem to be available. There are procedures and rights — but they seem unimportant to all except those in the classrooms.
The most basic problem is that we are creating the atmosphere of a high school, and we are insisting on treating legal adults as younger students, which neither sit well with the young people nor doesn’t work in 90 percent of the cases.
There was an article — one of scores over the years — in Newsday yesterday which discussed the idea that new teachers should be evaluated for promotion based on their students’ standardized test scores !!! — after two years! — and stating that New York might be at a disadvantage for Federal education money for not tying teacher tenure to standardized scores.
As both a mother and a teacher, I am so aggravated and appalled with our “teach to the test” culture that is snuffing the life out of student interest and educator creativity. My son is enduring the second day of the New York State Social Studies test today (fifth grade) and the homework he has been doing over the past few weeks toward acing this test is disgusting.
The average teacher works with students for one year, largely oblivious to, and uninvolved with, the student before or after the child’s stint in his or her classroom. Judging a new teacher or basing job tenure solely on students’ standardized test performance is ludicrous, and that’s a mild word for it.
I always did well in school, including classroom, teacher-written tests on the content in the classroom. However, I’ve always been a rather average standardized test-taker. Basing my teachers’ ability to teach on these scores would have been obscene, and anyone who has spent any reasonable amount of time in a classroom knows it.
Hey, I know: how about we start judging parents — we’ll have teachers and administrators give “home report cards” and submit them to the county or city of residence for a particular family. Based on what? Hmmm, let me think. It has to be something which fully encompasses the varying circumstances, cultures, socioeconomic status, family support system, literacy, social maturity, discipline, rapport with different offspring, life events, general knowledge, . . . oh, hell, that’s too frigging complicated. We need something simpler, something cut and dried, something standardized on which to base whether one is a parent worthy of that job. I know: how about how their kids do on standardized tests??!! After all, the kids are with their parents (or person or persons in a parental relationship) for extended periods of time. Surely, a parent’s ability to rear, assess, and address problem areas is quantifiable in this manner. I say we hack away at the Social Security of parents whose kids can’t perform adequately. That’ll improve parenthood. You just watch.

Exciting exciting– our blog was fished through for a great cocktail idea for the Bridal Guide in Newsday!

Check out the placement and the awesome caipirinha!

There aren’t many journalists walking away from paying jobs these days. With news organizations struggling and newsroom jobs disappearing, each week brings new calls from writers and editors who believe their flagging employers should save themselves by charging for Internet access. So count Saul Friedman a contrarian twice over. Mr. Friedman, who had written a column for Newsday since 1996, quit last week over the paper’s decision to require some readers to pay for access to its Web site. Customers of Cablevision, the cable and Internet provider that owns Newsday, and people who subscribe to Newsday in print will still be able to browse Newsday.com unfettered. But Newsday recently announced that everyone else will have to pay USD 5 a week to see much of the site, making it one of the few newspapers in the country to take such a plunge. That did not sit well with Mr. Friedman, a freelancer who wrote Gray Matters, a weekly column on aging. He explained his departure in a note to Jim Romenesko’s media blog. In an interview, Mr. Friedman said, “My column has been popular around the country, but now it was really going to be impossible for people outside Long Island to read it.” That includes him; living outside Washington, he is not a subscriber to Newsday or Cablevision. Mr. Friedman, who is 80, said he would continue to write about older people for the site timegoesby.net, but he called his decision an end to more than 50 years in newspapers. He wrote for Newsday for more than 20 years, including several years as a staff writer in its Washington bureau

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/business/media/02elderly.html?_r=2&ref=media

This past week, Newsday.com, website to Long Island daily Newsday, closed the site for public access by requiring users to be registered subscribers to the online edition. The move came almost 9 months after the newspaper announced the intentions to do so.

The new access-only site comes with steep charges for those wishing to grab the latest on Long Island online – $5.00 weekly. By comparison, the New York Times’ Times Reader costs $14.95 a month (roughly $4.27 weekly). The weekly cost of the website actually comes out to more than the real paper (due to a $100 gift card given to subscribers)!

The website does have some back-door entry, however. Optimum subscribers and home delivery subscribers get access for free (which makes that $5/week + $100 gift card look even better). These users are not crippled in their access to the site at all, having full range as other subscribers would.

The move generally puts Long Island’s only two long standing and island-wide news sources behind the fence of a internet guarded mansion – News 12 Long Island and Newsday, both owned by the same company. Recent addition FiOS 1 Long Island by Verizon has yet to break through and make a website addition.

Newsday, a daily newspaper covering Long Island, NY, recently kicked off a series that chronicles the day-to-day lives of families affected by Alzheimer’s disease, taking a real hard look at the physical, emotional and financial toll of the brain disorder. Entitled “Alzheimer’s: The love and the heartbreak,” the series was developed over more than two years of observing and talking with the families.

The families include that of Michael Henley of Westbury, NY, who was diagnosed with young onset Alzheimer’s disease at age 36. Henley’s daughter, Courtney, was the second runner-up in AFA Teens college scholarship competition this year and wrote about the impact of her dad’s disease in her scholarship essay.

Read more here.

In honor of our 25th Anniversary, the (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) Foundation will host two very special benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden on October 29th and 30th, 2009. Each night will highlight different artists that will not only celebrate their music, but invite musical guests to join them onstage for what will be two unforgettable evenings with unique collaborations.

So reads the official announcement from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame regarding this week’s huge anniversary concerts.

And, indeed the events in New York could very well be unforgettable for those fortunate enough to be in attendance over the next two nights.

As Joel Peresman, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation’s president and chief executive told Glenn Gamboa in his Newsday feature, “There’s not too many shows where you can see Aretha Franklin and Metallica on the same stage.”

Peresman, Jann Wenner (co-founder of the rock hall and publisher of Rolling Stone magazine), and U2’s Bono are all quoted in Geoff Boucher’s preview of the shows in the Los Angeles Times. 

Boucher refers to this moment as “a tricky time for rock and for the rock hall itself,” but all associated with the show provide their thoughts on why the music (and the hall) will endure.

Among the artists expected to perform include the aforementioned Aretha Franklin, Metallica, and U2, along with Bruce Springsteen, Simon & Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and a boatload of special collaborators. 

And for the 99.9% of the population that won’t be in attendance (including previously announced Eric Clapton, sidelined by gallstone surgery), HBO will condense the two nights into a 4-hour special scheduled to air on Sunday, November 29th.

Newsday featured our Vintage Yankee Stadium Tin

Newsday had a great piece featuring our Vintage Yankee Stadium tin filled with bite-sized baseball cookies, calling it a great way “celebrate the Yankees’ victory – or mourn their defeat “

The Taste of Baltimore blog also wrote up a nice piece on our Baseball Cookie Bunt Packs, featured in this case of course with the Baltimore Orioles. The blog says:

Why are they called baseball cookies? Cause they’re shaped like baseballs and they come in cute baseball packages that you can customize based on your own Major League Baseball Team!

The best part of these cookies, to me, is that they have 5 ingredients! …I was so excited when I saw this! How often do you pick up a package of something and not understand a word of the ingredients? It says Unbleached flour, butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt. Wow. I know what all of those words mean

And how do they taste? Like shortbread! Classic shortbread: buttery and not-too-sweet. It’s great that you can find natural cookies, with real ingredients, and not have to sacrifice taste!

So check out the website: www.cooperstowncookie.com and let me know what you think. There are lots of other cookies to purchase as well. These cookies would be a great gift for a Baseball lover!