Probe Finds Fraud, Safety Violations At 9 NYC Day Care Centers
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The operators of nine day care centers in Brooklyn and Staten Island stood accused Friday of stealing from city taxpayers and putting children at risk.
The probe was announced Friday by Department of Investigations Commissioner Mark Peters, Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson and Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan.
As CBS 2 Political Reporter Marcia Kramer reported, the day care centers were all ordered to close. At one facility, the Next to Home Child Care center on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, the doors were locked and the security gates were padlocked next to a "space for rent" sign.
Probe Finds Fraud, Safety Violations At 9 NYC Day Care Centers
"We found rat poison and excrement on the floor. We found garbage piled in the backyard preventing people from getting to the egress. We found rotten milk in the fridge and we found the fire alarm lever in the lobby falling off the wall," said Peters, describing conditions at Next to Home.
Another center never provided any services despite getting almost $60,000 in city money. Others had phony staffer background checks and other document issues, officials said.
Probe Finds Fraud, Safety Violations At 9 NYC Day Care Centers
In one case, an employee was found to be working at one of the facilities under a fake identity and fled the premises when confronted, Thompson said.
"Clearly these workers were not fit to protect our children," Thompson said.
"I'm horrified by people who would do this to our children," Peters said.
Four people were arrested in the probe – Owen Larman, Elena Kaplan, Gina Schiavo, and Viktoriya Federovik. In addition to health and safety violations at their day care centers, the four defendants were charged with forging background and fingerprint checks, using fake education degrees, and falsifying letters that employees received child abuse training.
Larman was also accused in the case of a phantom school on Kings Highway in Brooklyn. Prosecutors said Larman collected $60,000 in city funds for running a day care at the site, but he allegedly never leased the property or ever registered any kids.
Larman, 41, is something of a legend in the world of fraud, Kramer reported. Before the day care center scam, he served time on a $12 million mortgage fraud case. The latest charges involve four of his day care center sites, including Next to Home.
"I can't imagine what kind of person puts children at risk," Peters said.
Prosecutors alleged Schaivo also forged documents at her One of a Kind Day Care on Staten Island. But she apparently forgot who the current governor is, prosecutors said.
"Gina's stupidity was that she used documents, which she falsified at the time, showed that Eliot Spitzer was the governor," District Attorney Donovan said.
Six facilities have already been closed. A seventh is closing by year's end and being monitored meanwhile. Investigators have asked regulators to close the other two.
Officials said no children were injured at any of the nine day care centers, but Peters said that was just "luck."
None of the centers had applied for universal pre-kindergarten, 1010 WINS' Juliet Papa reported.
Officials are intensifying the inspections and investigations of day care centers in the city.
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