HOSP-KILLER TWIST
Court OK’d him to work after sex assault
A Manhattan judge granted a special waiver to the man who became the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital killer so that he could score certain licenses and jobs after he was convicted in a sex attack, court records show.
Twelve days after landing the coveted exemption, Dr. Henry Bello was hired as a pharmacy technician for the city’s public-hospital system.
Two years after that, he was given a limited permit from the state to practice medicine and took a job as a doctor at Bronx-Lebanon.
Criminal Court Judge Melissa Jackson had awarded Bello the Certificate of Relief from Disabilities on Jan. 5, 2012, according to a confidential document obtained by The Post.
The special waiver was given to Bello — who went on a deadly rampage at Bronx-Lebanon Friday before killing himself — after he plea-bargained down to misdemeanor unlawful imprisonment in the 2004 sex attack.
Bello had been charged with felony sex abuse after a woman he didn’t know accused him of groping her private parts, grabbing her arms and dragging her off, saying, “You’re coming with me,” as she walked along Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village.
After Bello got the special employment waiver, he worked as a pharmacy tech at Metropolitan Hospital then got his limited permit from the state Education Department and was hired at Bronx-Lebanon.
Bello was forced to quit Bronx-Lebanon in 2015 amid sex-harassment allegations.
He was then hired in September as a caseworker for the city’s HIV/AIDS Services Administration.
He stopped showing up for work in April and was fired on June 21 — nine days before he unleashed the bloodbath that killed Dr. Tracy Tam and wounded six others at Bronx-Lebanon.
City officials insist that Bello didn’t need the waiver to land his pharmacy or caseworker jobs because his misdemeanor sex conviction wasn’t serious enough to show up on background checks.
A Bronx-Lebanon spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
Jackson, now an acting state Supreme Court justice, didn’t return a message seeking comment.
A spokesman for the state court system said Jackson granted Bello’s waiver “based on the facts and circumstances as they were presented to her at that time.”