The federal-New York State investigation into alleged fraud and other illegal activities in the network of nursing and old aged homes owned by Rabbi Bernard Bergman, a leader of the American and World Mizrachi Movement, will also look into possible ties with the underworld. In particular, the probe will check a report that an alleged associate of reputed underworld figure Joseph A. Colombo Sr. had lived in a penthouse at one of Rabbi Bergman’s nursing homes for the indigent.
Sen. Charles H. Percy (R.Ill.), a member of the Senate subcommittee on long-term care, has asked the New York Temporary State Commission on Living Costs which has scheduled a hearing for Jan. 21 to look into the matter. Percy acted on allegations by Rep. Edward I. Koch (D.NY), who charged underworld ties and political protection. Assemblyman Andrew J. Stein (D. Manhattan), chairman of the commission, told a news conference yesterday, “It is our information that there are connections between the Bernard Bergman empire and organized crime.”
Stein said that Rocco Scarfone, considered a former advisor to Colombo, had been on the payroll of the Towers Nursing Home and had used a penthouse in the Park Crescent Nursing Home, both Bergman facilities on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Rabbi Bergman, a former president of the Religious Zionist Organization of America, heads the Mizrachi’s Religious Education Committee in the U.S. He is also one of three members of the World Mizrachi Presidium which is closely connected to the National Religious Party in Israel. Another member and associate of Rabbi Bergman is Swiss-Jewish financier Tibor Rosenbaum whose financial troubles involving millions of dollars in investments by leading Israeli firms has created a major scandal
Rabbi Bergman reportedly became a multimillionaire through the operations of nursing homes in New York City and State and in New Jersey which receive large sums of money from Medicaid. The alleged misuse of these funds and deplorable conditions in many of the homes were exposed in recent articles in the New York Times and the Village Voice.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
