“Should this dead horse get a burst of life — we will beat it down,” Weiner said.
Representatives from Albany — state Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Flushing) and Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi (D-Forest Hills) — echoed that pledge.
Thomas Seaman, a court appointed receiver for Medical Capital Holdings, a now-defunct medical investment firm that issued Parkway’s mortgage, said he would be forced to foreclose on the building without an order to reopen the hospital. And citing the recent arrival of St. John’s and Mary Immaculate on the real estate market, Seaman said he would pursue alternatives to selling the building as he tries to recover the nearly $30 million loan.
“I am informed that, aside from a healthcare facility, there would be few viable uses for the building such as a low-security correctional or detention center or a halfway house,” Seaman said in the Oct. 15 deposition. “Such uses would likely meet with community opposition. Nonetheless, given the configuration of the Parkway Hospital building and the well-known need for facilities to detain immigration holds and for halfway houses, that could be the only viable use.”
Seaman’s statements came as the hospital’s owners sought an injunction from a federal judge ordering the facility reopened, a motion that was dismissed last Monday. The deposition was prepared supporting the hospital’s owner — Dr. Robert Aquino — in his efforts to restore Parkway’s medical license.
The comments were first reported on the Queens Chronicle’s website on Oct. 16.
The hospital owner filed two lawsuits in August claiming that disgraced former assemblyman Anthony Seminerio conspired with local competitors to have the facility shuttered after he refused to pay consulting fees to the convicted ex-lawmaker.
Aquino — who acquired the struggling hospital under heavy debt in 2005 — did not reveal his story for more than two years, when he was compelled to by law enforcement officials investigating the Seminerio case in 2008.
But none of that was relevant, according to Judge Lewis Kaplan, who eviscerated Parkway’s attorneys for not presenting evidence for their actual claim — that Parkway was denied due process by the state-appointed Berger Commission and that keeping the facility shuttered would do irreparable damage to the already-closed hospital’s business.
Kaplan was skeptical of claims of ignorance by Parkway’s owner that the Berger Commission did not give due notice for their closure — citing the pre-Berger Regional Advisory Council’s recommendation that the hospital be closed in two years. He said that Parkway’s lawyers failed to present any evidence that the hospital was denied requests to present their case to the commission after the RAC report.
The judge also said there was no evidence that Parkway could actually make money if it reopened — citing the hospital’s history of financial troubles in dismissing claims of irreparable damage.
Aquino conceded after the hearing that any new attempts to reopen the hospital would be unlikely.
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