The troubles surrounding Wyckoff Heights Medical Center continue to mount, as its former chief financial officer is suing the failing Brooklyn hospital for severance pay, insisting he was not involved in a bribery scandal with state Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio (now deceased) and former Wyckoff CEO Dominick Gio, the Queens Campaigner reported.
The hospital fired Wah-chung Hsu after the scandal became public, although Hsu said he was not part of the Wyckoff-owned bank account that paid Seminerio and had no knowledge of it.
Hsu also argued the hospital was in breach of contract when it refused to pay his $525,000 severance package, noted the Green Point Star.
Hsu's employment contract guaranteed the former CFO 18 months of pay unless the hospital terminated him for "legal wrongdoing," according to the Campaigner.
An Orange County Supreme Court judge granted partial summary judgment for Hsu, saying he was not aware of the secret account or its bribery usage.
In January, Wyckoff suddenly replaced its CEO, while the Brooklyn district attorney's office investigates whether hospital officials received payments from a Caribbean medical school and whether the former chief executive inappropriately received hospital reimbursements for lavish personal expenses, FierceHealthcare previously reported.
Seminerio was at the center of a similar bribery case, which earned David P. Rosen, former CEO of New York's MediSys Health Network, a spot on our FierceHealthcare 10 notorious healthcare executives list last year.
For more:
- read the Queens Campaigner article
- here's the Green Point Star article