Nursing home owed $9 million by former owner, lawsuit says

By N. Clark Judd

The former owner of a Kingsbridge Heights nursing home loaned herself $9 million out of the home’s accounts, a lawsuit filed two weeks ago alleges, and the courtappointed receiver now in charge of the cash-strapped home is suing to get it back.

Helen Sieger, the former owner of the Kingsbridge Heights Rehabilitation and Care Center, took out the loan in 2004 and promised to pay it in 2006, receiver William Pascocello alleges in the lawsuit — but Ms. Sieger never paid back her nursing home, the lawsuit alleges.

Since then, a union dispute that began over Ms. Sieger’s refusal to renegotiate a contract escalated into a six-month strike in 2008 that only ended after the National Labor Relations Board forced her to let them back to work and resume making payments into the union’s benefits funds. The state attorney general charged her last August with failing to provide workers’ compensation insurance for her employees for a period of time; she is next scheduled to appear in court early next month on those charges.

And her own brother and sister, who control the entity that owns the land under the nursing home, were poised to evict the home for nonpayment of rent.

As a result of that suit, the state Department of Health appointed Mr. Pascocello caretaker of the home in February and sought to revoke Ms. Sieger’s license to operate a home. Mr. Pascocello became a receiver earlier this month.

When Ms. Sieger was ousted, she left millions in debt behind, said Mr. Pascocello’s lawyer, Marvin Tenzer.

“She took a loan of $9 million and left liabilities in excess of $10 million and probably $16 or $18 million,” Mr. Tenzer said.

Ms. Sieger did not return a phone message seeking comment left at a number listed for her Brooklyn home.

The Kingsbridge Heights strike was an emotional six months during which members of the health care union 1199 SEIU picketed through snow, rain, heat, and the loss of one of their own, Audrey Smith-Campbell, due to complications from asthma. Family and co-workers said that Ms. Smith-Campbell would not have died if she had been able to afford asthma medication. Absent payments from Ms. Sieger, the union had stopped providing health benefits, and the striking workers were living on shoestring budgets.

The strike drew national attention. Even Barack Obama, then a Democratic presidential candidate, sent a phone message of support.