Glazer company target of lawsuit in federal court here

Will Astor//November 30, 2001//

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A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court here last week targets a Henrietta company owned by billionaire Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Malcolm Glazer.
The lawsuit alleges criminal conversion of Medicare payments. The civil action, filed by Louisville-based Kindred Rehab Services LLC, accuses First Allied Corp., dba Nursing Home Management Co., of taking some $685,000 in Medicare payments for services Kindred provided to skilled-nursing facilities in Vermont and Wisconsin, and then refusing to pay Kindred the amounts owed.
In both cases, Kindred alleges the nursing homes collected after falsely telling Medicare officials they had paid Kindred for the services.
Based in Henrietta with offices in New York City, California and Florida, First Allied is a holding company for Glazer’s varied interests, which in addition to nursing homes include mobile home parks, television stations and shopping centers in California, Texas, Massachusetts, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Illinois and Mississippi.
Glazer is a Rochester native who now lives in Palm Beach, Fla. He is most well-known for his $192 million purchase of the Buccaneers in 1995.
He also is chairman of Rochester-based Zapata Corp., a fish products company headed by his son, Avram. Zapata owns nearly all the shares of Zap.com Corp., an erstwhile Internet venture that it currently describes as a public shell company searching for acquisition opportunities.
A First Allied official reached at the firm’s 270 Commerce Dr. headquarters declined to comment on the Kindred suit.
Kindred’s Louisville-based attorney, Benjamin Fultz of Tachau, Maddox, Hovious & Dickens PLC, could not be reached for comment.
The Kentucky rehab provider states in court papers that First Allied hired it in 1997 to provide speech, occupational and other therapy services for Ver Delle Village, a skilled-nursing facility in St. Albans, Vt. Kindred made similar arrangements with the Bel Air Health Care Center in Milwaukee in 1998, the court filing states.
Northwestern Medical Center Inc., a community hospital in St. Albans, is named as a defendant along with Ver Delle. The suit identifies the hospital, Ver Delle and First Allied as “owning, operating or managing Ver Delle.”
However, Northwestern spokesman Jonathan Billings said that the nursing home and the hospital are not legally affiliated.
Ver Delle CEO Penny Pike could not be reached for comment.
Bel Air is a skilled-nursing facility in Milwaukee. Along with Bel Air, Kindred’s court papers name First Allied, Pace Development Corp. and Pace Development LLC as owners, operators or managers of Bel Air.
Bel Air administrator Kris Sprtel could not be reached for comment.
Kindred’s complaint states that from Sept. 30, 1998, to Nov. 30, 1999, Medicare paid Ver Delle for $211,000 worth of Kindred’s therapy services, and paid Bel Air for some $473,000 in services from June 30, 1998, to Dec. 31, 1999.
Kindred maintains it has not been paid by either skilled-nursing facility, and that when it dunned them for the past-due amounts, the nursing homes told it to contact First Allied. Kindred claims First Allied officials acknowledged the debt and proposed a payment plan, but balked at paying interest on the past-due sums.
The Kentucky firm is asking the court to put the amounts owed plus interest and the costs of filing the court case in a constructive trust.
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