DA: Former exec at NuHealth indicted

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A Cold Spring Harbor resident and former hospital executive was indicted for official misconduct, authorities said Friday.

According to the Nassau D.A.'s office, Lawrence Slatky, 64, was indicted for unlawfully awarding a five-year contract to a favored vendor for laundry services at a public extended care facility.

Slatky, a former chief operating officer and executive vice president of NuHealth System, a public benefit corporation now in East Meadow, surrendered to DA investigators Friday. He was charged with two counts of official misconduct for awarding a contract to a company run by a personal friend rather than to the lowest original bidder, the DA’s office said.

Nassau County Court Judge Philip Grella released Slatky on his own recognizance. Slatky faces a maximum sentence of one year in jail on each count if convicted. He is due back in court on Nov. 14.

In 2010, NuHealth prepared a sealed bid proposal for general laundry services at both Nassau University Medical Center and the Uniondale-based A. Holly Patterson Extended Care Facility, as well as for personal laundry services for clothing at Patterson, the DA’s office said.

Seven organizations made sealed bids, which NuHealth’s purchasing department publicly opened, according to the DA. The lowest overall bid was made by Amityville-based JVK Operations.

The purchasing department recommended to Slatky to split the two portions of the contract to two bidders for a lower total cost: general laundry services to JVK and personal laundry services to Oceanside-based Ocean Side Institutional Industries. JVK’s bid for the five-year contract for general laundry services totaled approximately $1.1 million per year, and Ocean Side’s bid for the five-year contract for personal laundry services totaled approximately $102,000 per year, according to the DA‘s office.

The DA’s Office said Slatky did not contact the low bidder for personal laundry services, Ocean Side, which did not ultimately win the contract. Instead, Slatky contacted Hempstead-based FDR Services Corp., which is run by his personal friend, and which originally lost with a higher personal laundry bid totaling about $104,000 per year. Slatky negotiated a new lowest bid from FDR and directed that the personal laundry services contract be awarded to the company. The practice violated NuHealth’s procurement policy, under which negotiations of post-bid decreases can only occur with the lowest responsible and responsive bidder. JVK and FDR began their five-year contracts in 2011, The DA’s office said.

Claiming that his client saw no personal financial gain in the transaction, his attorney Brian Griffin told Newsday, he was “very confident that when all the charges are flushed out in an objective light, they simply will not stand. Any suggestion that Mr. Slatky did anything criminal is simply false,” he said. “When we start prosecuting people for what could be considered simple mistakes in contracts, I think that’s a very dangerous thing to do.”

Slatky is credited with the turnaround of the once-troubled A. Holly Patterson Extended Care Facility, which in 2004 made headlines when the U.S. Justice Department and U.S. attorney’s office said the nursing home did not prepare adequate care for its patients, violating their civil rights, according to Newsday.

“The rules for awarding public contracts are designed to ensure fairness for bidders and to protect taxpayers,” Rice said, in a statement. “My office will continue to investigate and hold accountable anyone who violates this trust and these rules that exist to protect the public.”