A bite out of charity

CEO dental claim

The head of a troubled Harlem nonprofit funded with millions of dollars in taxpayer money got more than $20,000 worth of dental work and medical services for free at the group’s clinic, a whistleblower charges in a new federal lawsuit.

Saundra Alexander (below), a longtime board member and current interim CEO of Heritage Health and Housing who is paid some $200,000 a year, “regularly made use of the services provided by the Healthcare Center,” says the suit filed in Manhattan last week by former employee Arthur Smith.

“Ms. Alexander never paid those bills — she instead ordered Healthcare Center staff to periodically reduce her balance to zero,” the suit alleges.

Smith, who was Heritage’s IT director, says he was fired in November a day after complaining about Alexander’s acts and other wrongdoing to a Heritage board member, the suit says.

The nonprofit’s mission is to run a health-care center for the poor and provide housing for the mentally ill. It is funded almost entirely with taxpayer money. It received $11.3 million in government grants in the 2016 fiscal year plus $4 million in Medicaid money, its tax filing shows.

But the group has been accused of mismanagement. The state Office of Mental Health blasted Alexander and board Chairman David Rosenthal in a May 2017 letter for failing to ensure residents were “treated in a dignified and respectful manner.”

Alexander, 74, who was the Heritage board’s treasurer, took over as the group’s interim CEO in October 2016 after the previous CEO, Alvaro Simmons, resigned for falsely claiming to have a doctorate, Smith’s suit says.

But Alexander didn’t step down as treasurer, as required by federal guidelines, legal papers say.

Alexander was never formally nominated or approved by the board to serve as CEO, legal papers say. With Alexander as treasurer, the board set her salary at about $200,000, the suit claims.

The federal Health Resources and Services Administration, which funds the CEO’s salary, got wind of the arrangement in April 2017 and told Heritage it needed documentation of Alexander’s board resignation and the minutes from the meeting where she was approved as CEO, the suit says.

Smith claims Rosenthal, the board chair, asked him to “produce the requested resignation documents and board minutes and then backdate them to October 2016,” according to the suit.

Smith refused and contends that Rosenthal and/ or Alexander or someone acting on their behalf “created fake documents and backdated them.”

Rosenthal, director of behavior science for Columbia University’s Center for Family and Community Medicine, told The Post, “In my life, I have never done that.”

Alexander was relieved of the CEO role in September when Heritage hired a new CEO. But that woman lasted less than two weeks, and Alexander got the title back.

Alexander didn’t return requests for comment.

The state has cut funding to the program. The city has at least partially cut funding.