Hundreds of complaints alleging everything from theft to bid-rigging inside the municipal hospital system came into the Inspector General’s Office over the last decade — but most never came out, said agency sources.
The sources — who included the former supervisor of the IG’s investigative unit — told The Post that about 800 cases dating as far back as 2003 were gathering dust.
“A good percentage, nothing happens,” declared one source, a former NYPD cop who supervised the entire investigative unit for 11 years and resigned in disgust nine months ago. “Another percentage get a cursory look.”
Some of the cases are marked “open” even though the investigators assigned to them have taken other jobs or retired — sometimes years earlier, he said.
The supervisor, who is retired from the NYPD, said he was speaking out now to The Post because he’s been sounding the alarm for months without anyone paying attention.
A second agency source confirmed that there were “hundreds and hundreds of cases that hadn’t been worked on.”
The moldy cases run the gamut, from an allegation of time and leave abuses at Metropolitan Hospital in East Harlem filed in 2004 to charges of procurement fraud at Jacobi Hospital in The Bronx in 2008.
A few date back to 2003, including a complaint about bid irregularities at Seaview Hospital, a long-term rehab facility on Staten Island.
One agency source recalled a case that was dropped because it involved senior officials at one of the 11 municipal hospitals who were parking their personal vehicles without paying a monthly fee of about $70.
When confronted, the officials coerced a clerk to give them backdated receipts, the source recalled.
“I was never given a satisfactory answer why that wasn’t pursued,” he said. “I think it was because they were high-level people.”
Unlike IGs at mayoral agencies, who are overseen by the Department of Investigation, the Health and Hospitals Corporation IG Norman Dion operates independently.
Dion denied that there was an enormous backlog of unresolved cases, saying the office has about 400 “open matters,” which is to be expected given the size of the hospital system.
He conceded that four cases went back to 2003. But again, he defended the long time frame.
“Some may involved charges of corruption or white-collar crimes, which, by definition, are long-term investigations,” Dion said.
“Other cases remain open because they are related to other, newer cases, either in relation to their subject matter or the individuals involved. And others are open because individuals involved may be awaiting trial.”
Dion wouldn’t explain why senior executives accused of skipping on parking fees weren’t pursued, saying the office can’t “comment or confirm or deny an investigation.”
“The Office of Inspector General is committed to the highest ethical standards and takes every report of fraud, waste, conflict or mismanagement very seriously,” he said.