Nursing home in spotlight gives generously to Spitzer

Newsday reports:

Soon after Gov. Eliot Spitzer began to field repeated requests for a special prosecutor in the case against 10 Long Island nurses charged with endangering patients at a nursing home, that facility's owners started pouring thousands of dollars into the governor's campaign coffers.

Avalon Gardens Rehabiliation and Health Care Center in Smithtown and other nursing homes in the SentosaCare network donated $15,000 to the Spitzer 2010 campaign fund on Dec. 20, according to disclosure reports filed in January. On the same day, business partners of SentosaCare's owners, Benjamin Landa and Bent Philipson, gave an additional $10,000, records show.

The contributions, made at a breakfast fundraiser in Manhattan, came two months after powerful groups such as the New York State Nurses Association threw their weight behind calls for a special prosecutor. SentosaCare and its attorney, Howard Fensterman, a prominent Democratic Party fundraiser, gave Spitzer a total of $2,000 in 2005 and 2006.

The nurses -- all Filipino immigrants brought to the United States by a company affiliated with Woodmere-based SentosaCare -- are charged with conspiracy and endangering the welfare of children in Avalon Gardens' pediatric unit. Their abrupt resignations in April 2006 over working conditions caused a staffing crisis, prosecutors and the nursing home say. The nurses say they left knowing all shifts would be covered, and two state probes found that no patients were placed in jeopardy.

The timing of the political contributions -- and SentosaCare's modest support for Spitzer in the past -- raises questions, the nurses' advocates say.

"This is their pattern: Trying to influence this case through their political contributions and connections," said Oscar Michelen, a Mineola attorney for Felix Vinluan, the nurses' labor attorney who also faces charges in the case.

Errol Cockfield, a spokesman for Spitzer, said the governor had not spoken to Landa or Philipson and his decision will not be affected by their campaign contributions. He said requests for a special prosecutor -- a rarely used gubernatorial power -- were being "carefully" and "actively" reviewed.

Eliot Spitzer is one classy guy.