By Howard Koplowitz
The bribery trial of former MediSys Chief Executive Officer David Rosen, who is charged with steering $390,000 in payments to late state Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio to get favorable treatment for Jamaica Hospital, began Monday with opening arguments.
Rosen, the former head of MediSys, which oversees Jamaica, Flushing and Peninsula hospitals, faces up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
He exercised his right to a speedy trial and Manhattan federal Judge Jed Rakoff is hearing the case instead of a jury.
During opening arguments, a 2008 wiretapped conversation between Rosen and Seminerio, who died in a North Carolina prison in January while serving a six-year sentence for honest services mail fraud, was played, according to Courthouse News Service.
Rosen said Seminerio was “the only guy that knows how to move and shake” during the call and also said he was going to “shake out [Seminerio’s] check.”
Rosen’s attorney, E. Scott Morvillo, claimed the former executive consulted with a lawyer and was told the payments were not illegal and called the charges “conjecture and innuendo,” according to the New York Post.
Seminerio pleaded guilty to setting up a sham consulting company, Marc Consultants, which he used to deposit payments from Rosen, according to federal prosecutors.
Rosen allegedly paid Seminerio $390,000 for the assemblyman to act on Jamaica Hospital’s behalf in Albany.
In another tapped phone call between Seminerio and Rosen, the assemblyman boasted that he had special access to then-state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, who was convicted of two counts of mail fraud and wire fraud in 2009.
“Dave, let me tell you something,” Seminerio told Rosen. “You know, and I can tell it to you, I walk into Bruno’s office like I walk into your office.”
Seminerio said to Rosen, “That kind of relationship you can’t buy for a million dollars.”
Rosen is also charged with paying $177,368 to Assemblyman William Boyland Jr. (D-Brooklyn), a former MediSys employee, before his election in 2003 and giving Boyland a $3,000-a-month, no-show consulting job from 2006-11.
He also allegedly steered hundreds of thousands of dollars in business to Compassionate Care, a hospice service, with Sen. Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn) getting a cut of the money, federal prosecutor Glen McCorty said during opening arguments, according to the Post.
Kruger, former Parkway Hospital owner Dr. Robert Aquino and lobbyist Richard Lipsky were also charged in the March federal investigation but are having trials separate from Rosen.
Reach reporter Howard Koplowitz by e-mail at hkoplowitz@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4573.
