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NY Post Said to Have ID’d Shady Moreland Nonprofit

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From left, state AG Eric Schneiderman, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and сommission co-chair and Oneida County DA William Fitzpatrick at a July news conference on the сommission.
From left, state AG Eric Schneiderman, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and сommission co-chair and Oneida County DA William Fitzpatrick at a July news conference on the сommission.
The unnamed New York City nonprofit that appears to provide few services yet rakes in millions in taxpayer money, as described by the state’s anti-corruption panel known as the Commission, has been reported to bear a striking resemblance to a Brooklyn agency.

The New York State Moreland Commission, in a report that was issued last week, addressed but did not identify the name of the New York City nonprofit agency. The reason that the nonprofit was mentioned was because, as a result of the commission’s surveillance, the storefront that received nearly $3 million in state funds did not appear to be providing much, if any, services. This very nonprofit agency still rakes in millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

In response to the commission’s disclosure of the questionable charity, the New York Post conducted its own investigation and on Sunday, December 8, reported that the nonprofit agency in question bore a strong similarity to a Brooklyn agency.

The agency is supposed to provide various medical services “with little scrutiny and no medical oversight.” The money came from a “geographically and politically diverse group of some of the state’s most powerful lawmakers,” according to the Moreland Commission report. It also noted in its findings that the “investigation remains in its early stages, and it is possible that the organization provides laudable services to the public,” and emphasized that it had “found no impropriety to date and reached no conclusion at this time.”

In its investigation, the commission even mounted a camera to a telephone pole outside of the charity and allegedly recorded minimal foot traffic during the entire 25-day surveillance period, according to the Post.

When asked where employees and clients were during that time period, the sole employee inside the storefront told a commission investigator that a majority of the group’s activities took place in other states and even in two other countries. Furthermore, the employee stated, according to the Post findings on the report, that the organization was actually subletting office space to another nonprofit.

In the Sunday Post article it was revealed that the organization Relief Resources Inc. occupies a storefront at 5904 13th Avenue in Borough Park, a location it shares with the group Refuah Resources. Additionally, the Post reported that a telephone pole is located directly outside the building, just where the investigators of the commission have said a camera was placed. The Post investigation, which was based on public records, indicated a strong possibility that the unnamed nonprofit in the commission report could indeed be Relief Resources. Officials have not publicly confirmed whether Relief Resources is in fact the nonprofit that was investigated.

However, reporter Nick Powell of City & State, a publication that focuses on government affairs, reportedly told WNYC that a “source familiar with the investigation confirmed for Powell that Relief Resources is, indeed, the mystery nonprofit mentioned in the Moreland report.”

According to the Relief Resources website, the group “provides referral services aimed at helping those in the Jewish community cope with mental-health issues. It has offices in two other countries — Canada and Israel — as well as in New Jersey and upstate Monroe, “ the Post reported.

Furthermore, the Post said that state records indicate that Relief Resources has used the services of the Albany lobbying firm Malkin & Ross in order to gain state funding. The Moreland Commission’s unnamed nonprofit uses “a top-shelf outside lobbying firm.”

According to state records, New York state has given $2,901,000 in funding since 2005. And lawmakers have sponsored seven member-item grants totaling $1,275,000 since 2006, according to the state attorney general’s Open Government Web site.

The Post reported that the agency’s most recent tax filings show that it “took in $1.8 million in the year ending June 30, 2012, and spent $1.7 million, including $963,695 on salaries. It gave out $317,415 in grants for mental-health treatment to five people and another $116,992 to a dozen patients.”

The program director for Relief Resources, Benjamin Babad, told the Post he could not comment on the report because he was unaware of the commission and the report in general. He also said that the agency provides mental-health referrals to “thousands” of clients mostly in New York.

Meanwhile, in other reactions to the Moreland Commission findings, co-chairman and Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick told Susan Arbetter on The Capitol Pressroom on Monday, December 9, that he was still hoping that the primarily Republican controlled Senate would approve a public campaign system.

Senate Republicans have thus far opposed the public financing measures that the Democratic-led Assembly has approved over the years.

“I’m reading that there’s only one vote short in the Senate,” Fitzpatrick said on the program. “That doesn’t sound like dead on arrival to me.”

Gannett contradicted Fitzpatrick’s simplistic “one vote short” remark by explaining that not every Democrat in the mainline conference supported the measure and that their futures as lawmakers are uncertain as 2014 approaches, so they may not want to take such a heated issue to task during an election year.

In addition, although most Moreland Commission members supported a recommendation in a preliminary report to create a public financing system, seven members joined the dissenting side in the later and just released report.

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