Gov. Kathy Hochul attended a secret assembly this week on the Higher East Facet townhouse of Alexander Rovt — a billionaire mega-donor to her marketing campaign whose hospital community was bailed out by the state in April.
A supply offered The Put up a video of Hochul — who's already underneath fireplace over accusations of pay to play marketing campaign donations involving an overpriced, no-bid $637 million COVID check contract — getting into Rovt’s mansion on East 68th Avenue Thursday morning.
Rovt, 70, is chairman of the board of One Brooklyn Well being Techniques Inc., which runs a community of medical services the place the coronavirus reportedly ran wild throughout the first, lethal wave of the pandemic.
Its hospitals embrace the financially distressed Interfaith Medical Middle, Kingsbrook and Brookdale.
The state price range — permitted by Hochul and the legislature in April — pumped $1.7 billion right into a community of “financially distressed” hospitals that embrace Rovt’s One Brooklyn system.
State marketing campaign finance data present Rovt and his spouse, Olga, donated the utmost $139,400 to Hochul’s marketing campaign.
She is dealing with off in opposition to Lengthy Island Rep. Lee Zeldin, the Republican candidate for governor, in a bid to stay New York’s chief govt after taking up when Andrew Cuomo resigned final 12 months in a sexual harassment and misconduct scandal.
Rovt has additionally had possession pursuits within the Optima Care Smithtown nursing house, and a house well being care company, Prime Well being Alternative, the place he serves on the board. He sought and gained state approvals for nursing houses from then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration in 2016.
There’s additionally a enterprise proposal at play, hatched by the Hochul administration, that would support hospitals linked to Rovt.
In July, the state Well being Division informed NY Presbyterian Weill-Cornell it could solely grant approval of a brand new $8.4 million coronary heart transplant heart in Manhattan if the hospital shaped a partnership with Rovt’s One Brooklyn system, or one other operator, to supply $50 million in main well being care in Brooklyn and Queens, the Empire Middle for Public Coverage reported.
“She can be a particularly useful individual for anyone within the well being care trade to know and have a relationship with,” Empire Middle’s well being analyst Invoice Hammond stated of Hochul.
In the meantime, the Day by day Beast wrote in a 2021 expose of Rovt’s enterprise dealings throughout the COVID-19 outbreak: “The huge area Rovt constructed together with his state contracts, grants, and approvals have been the scene of among the outbreak’s worst carnage.
The Ukrainian native, who made a killing promoting fertilizer within the previous Soviet Union, has already maxed out in giving donations to Hochul alongside his spouse — with the couple giving a complete $139,400 to her marketing campaign.
He's an energetic philanthropist, notably involving Jewish causes. He had kin who died within the Holocaust. A supply concerned in a charity who met Rovt in his workplace stated he was accompanied by an armed non-public safety guard.
The mogul owns not less than 30 properties in New York and owns the IBE Commerce Corp in addition to a trophy property at Bankers Belief constructing at 14 Wall St., a 37-story constructing that he purchased with money 10 years in the past.
The mogul purchased one other property on East 63 Avenue in 2005, which Forbes journal known as his “Man Cave.” He gutted the place and rebuilt it with bolstered concrete with brick dealing with and retractable bulletproof shades protecting the home windows. It additionally included a cigar room, 12 loos and stable 14-karat gold fixtures within the grasp tub.
He later bought it.
The couple has donated greater than $2 million to candidates over time — together with Donald Trump, Chuck Schumer, Andrew Cuomo, Hillary Clinton and tons of of hundreds of dollars to the New York State Democratic Committee — and even dangerous boys like ex-congressman Anthony Weiner and former councilman Hiram Monserrate.
Rovt’s additionally an enormous donor to distressed Maimonides Medical Middle’s coronary heart and vascular institute.
The Day by day Beast stated Cuomo’s marketing campaign account acquired $1 million alone when factoring in donations from Rovt’s associates and corporations.
One other recipient of his monetary largess – the felonious ex-state Sen. Carl Kruger – even had the higher chamber of the state Legislature go a decision in his honor in 2009, simply months after $9,500 of Rovt money landed in his marketing campaign battle chest.
Hochul’s marketing campaign and authorities workplace remained mum Friday on her go to to Rovt’s townhouse, declining repeated requests for touch upon the aim of the assembly.
Rovt additionally declined a request for remark.
Rovt was born in Carpathia, a western area of Ukraine that been claimed at completely different occasions by the Hungarians, the Nazis, after which the Soviets. He identifies as a Carpathian.
— Extra reporting by Bruce Golding
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