HELL-TER SHELTER
Judge orders takeover of ‘scam’ org.
A judge placed an embattled Big Apple shelter operator in receivership on Monday — a week after its offices were raided in connection with a billing scheme that allegedly scammed the city out of millions.
Manhattan Supreme Cour Justice Lyle Frank named a former Department of Social Services official and nonprofit executive, Daniel Tietz, to oversee Childrens Community Services’ operations, which include a $600 million contract to run one of the city’s largest hotelshelter operations.
“Today, as a result of our action and petition, the court appointed a temporary receiver for this provider effective immediately,” said Department of Homeless Services spokesman Isaac McGinn.
He described the ruling as “a win for families receiving services at these locations who don’t have to worry about being left high and dry because of the alleged improprieties of management.”
Tietz (inset) will make $25,000 a month serving as the de facto chief executive of
CCS, which will pick up his bill.
Additionally, officials disclosed Monday that the two top CCS officials linked to the alleged billing scam — Thomas Bransky and Ruth Mandelbaum — were fired following last week’s raid by the city Department of Investigation and Manhattan federal prosecutors.
City officials specifically identified the pair in a lawsuit filed
Wednesday, asking the judge to OK the takeover of CCS.
The 29-page filing laid out a series of alleged scams involving CCS and several contractors, many of which were closely linked to the nonprofit or a former member of its board, Peter Weiser.
City officials charged in the civil suit that CCS violated city contracting policies by failing to properly bid out its work to subcontractors.
Those companies were frequently overpaid, often never delivered the services as promised and, in some cases, appeared to be fronts incapable of doing the work CCS said they performed, the suit says.
Additionally, city officials disclosed in the lawsuit that DOI and the feds raided addresses linked to CCS and several of the companies.
Bransky’s lawyer revealed in Frank’s courtroom on Monday that officials seized his client’s phone and computer as part of the operation last week.
Childrens Community Services provides emergency housing to roughly 1,900 New York families on any given night.
Most of the families — 1,700 — stay in rooms leased in hotels and motels across the Big Apple, making it one of DHS’s largest operators of emergency shelter space.
The nonprofit’s hotel operations were hit by city inspectors with a series of blistering reviews in recent years, which were revealed by The Post in stories published in 2018 and 2019.