Allege $350G Ripoff By DOE Contractor It Previously Banned

An independent service provider for the Department of Education fraudulently billed the city for almost $350,000 after being banned from conducting business with the DOE, the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City School District (SCI) announced.

George Lebovits, the owner of Brooklyn Community Management, invented several companies through which he billed the DOE after the department banned any future interaction with BCM.

Unlicensed Counselors

Additionally, two of the employees who provided counseling for city students through Mr. Lebovits were found to be not licensed to perform such services. Mr. Lebovits also assisted an attorney in falsely claiming to represent families of students seeking services from DOE-approved providers, according to the report by SCI Richard J. Condon.

Mr. Lebovits's original ban resulted from an SCI probe completed in July 2007 which found that BCM was fraudulently billing the DOE for services provided to non-DOE students. After his contract with the city expired and was not renewed at the end of the year, Mr. Lebovits created two new companies, Sumner Health Care Providers and Gross Care Inc., which he used to bill the DOE for counseling services. The companies acted as a conduit for providers to submit their payment invoices to the DOE.

When this came to the attention of SCI investigators, Mr. Lebovits admitted that he and his wife were owners of Sumner and that his mother-in-law was the owner of Gross Care. Between Dec. 11, 2007 and June 4, 2008, the two companies billed the DOE for a combined $296,000. Mr. Lebovits told investigators, "Gross Care don't have no money, BCM don't have any more money, Sumner don't have money, I, Mr. Lebovits, is laying out money for them."

Other Improprieties

One of Mr. Lebovits's employees who billed the DOE for counseling services, Joel Rosenshein, was found to be lying about the services he said he was providing. A man named Mordecai Klein performed the actual school-counseling services, but was an unlicensed social worker. He was supervised by Mr. Rosenshein, who is a qualified school psychologist but did not posses the required New York State Department of Education license. Mr. Rosenshein submitted the billing, which reached upwards of $46,000, because Mr. Klein remained unlicensed.

An attorney named Aaron Tyk was allegedly solicited by BCM to send letters of complaint to the DOE, in which he claimed he represented the families of four children with special needs. This claim was quickly disproved, as the families had never heard of him, and Mr. Tyk told SCI he had been asked by BCM to offer legal assistance for several children. Mr. Lebovits denied involvement in this scheme.

The SCI in a letter to Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein stated that "George Lebovits has continually demonstrated that he is an unscrupulous businessman and he, his companies, and all of their principals and officers, should be barred from any DOE contracts in the future." Mr. Condon went on to recommend that "the DOE should conduct a thorough audit of Lebovits, BCM, Sumner, Gross Care, and any of his other related businesses."

The DOE did not immediately respond to the SCI's findings.