What the $45 Million Centers Health Care Settlement Tells New York Families About Nursing Home Neglect

The short answer: the largest New York nursing home enforcement actions of the past two years describe the same failure. Owners kept staffing low to increase what they could take out through rent, loans, fees, and salaries paid to companies they controlled, and residents paid for it in unanswered call bells, untreated injuries, and, in several documented cases, death. The Attorney General’s settlements imposed independent monitors, minimum staffing levels, and tens of millions of dollars in restitution and resident care funds. A July 2026 investigative report found that at the largest chain involved, conditions afterward still fell short of what the settlement required.

This article describes the November 2024 settlement with four Centers Health Care facilities and their owners, the August 2025 settlement with Van Duyn Center in Syracuse, and the 2026 follow-up reporting, all drawn from Attorney General releases and published journalism. It then explains the New York statute that gives residents a private right to sue and the practical steps families can take. Milvidskiy Law Group did not represent any party in these matters.

FREE WEBINAR

5 Things to Know About

Estate Planning

When You Turn Sixty-Five

Save the Date

Friday, Sep 25^th at 2:30pm

The Centers Health Care Settlement

On November 14, 2024, Attorney General Letitia James announced a $45 million settlement with Centers for Care, LLC and its owners, Kenneth Rozenberg and Daryl Hagler, covering four nursing homes: Beth Abraham Center in the Bronx, Buffalo Center in Erie County, Holliswood Center in Queens, and Martine Center in Westchester. The Attorney General had sued in June 2023, and the court had appointed monitors at the four facilities in July and August of that year.

The findings described in the announcement are specific. Staff were assigned more residents than they could care for and “often failed to help residents with the basic activities of daily living, such as using the bathroom, eating, and maintaining personal hygiene.” Call bells went unanswered while residents sat in their own waste for hours. Meals were late. One resident fell, staff said she was not injured, and she was hospitalized three days later for emergency surgery, arriving with “severe diaper rash covering the majority of her lower torso.” Another was found wandering unsupervised and severely dehydrated. A third fell, was not examined, and her family was not told; her daughter later found her unconscious with a brain bleed. Inspectors described neglected food trays, vermin, flies, and “persistent smells of human waste.”

The financial side, in the Attorney General’s account, involved “collusive real estate arrangements, unnecessary and exorbitant loans with inflated interest rates, phony fees paid to companies they and their family members own, and inflated salaries paid for work that was not performed.” At Buffalo Center, rent reported to the state rose from about $600,000 a year to $2 million after the owners bought the building. In total, the Attorney General alleged that more than $22 million was diverted from resident care.

The settlement required $8.75 million in restitution to Medicaid and Medicare and $35 million into a Resident Care Fund for reforms, with up to $1 million more if needed. An Independent Health Care Monitor and an Independent Financial Monitor were to remain in place through at least July 31, 2026, with the facilities required to implement the health monitor’s staffing recommendations and then maintain those levels for two more years. The owners were barred from selling or closing the facilities for three years and had to install a chief compliance officer and facility-level compliance officers. According to later reporting, the monitor’s staffing standard was 3.5 hours of nursing care per resident per day.

The same two owners were the subject of a December 2025 New Jersey State Comptroller report finding that two of their South Jersey facilities gave residents less than half the legally required care while $92 million in Medicaid funds moved through related companies. We describe that report in a companion article on New Jersey’s nursing home enforcement cases.

What Happened After the Settlement

On July 29, 2026, the nonprofit newsroom New York Focus published an investigation by reporter Sam Mellins into conditions at Centers facilities after the settlement. Its findings, based on inspection records and staffing data, were that the required improvements had not held.

At Buffalo Center, the report counted 82 days between November 2024 and December 2025 on which the facility missed the 3.5-hour daily care minimum. Inspectors documented residents photographed unclothed and soiled, fly infestations, unreported abuse allegations, and a resident who suffered facial lacerations during unsafe handling. At Onondaga Center near Syracuse, a resident died after staff failed to perform required CPR and delayed reviewing lab results that showed seizure risk; the facility initially failed to report the death. At Washington Center in the Capital Region, average daily nursing care fell below three hours and a dementia patient fell from an elevated bed left unattended. At Ontario Center in the Finger Lakes, residents were found in dangerously cold rooms, incontinent residents waited up to 21 hours to be changed, and wound dressings went unchanged for days, with staff citing understaffing.

Federal and state inspectors imposed fines for some of this, including $139,471 at Buffalo Center and $177,790 at Onondaga Center at the federal level. The report noted that Centers had faced no additional enforcement from the Attorney General for settlement violations, that the monitors were scheduled to end on July 31, 2026 unless extended, and that the chain continued to receive Medicare and Medicaid payments. An Attorney General spokesperson said the office would “continue to investigate facilities to protect vulnerable New Yorkers.”

The follow-up matters because it shows the limit of enforcement. A settlement changes the rules a facility operates under. It does not by itself change who runs the facility or how they staff it day to day. Families with a relative in a facility under a monitor or a settlement should treat the agreement as a floor to hold the facility to, not as a guarantee.

The Van Duyn Settlement

On August 25, 2025, the Attorney General announced a $12 million settlement with Efraim Steif and Uri Koenig, owners of Van Duyn Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Syracuse. The incidents described in the announcement are among the most severe in any recent New York enforcement action. One resident, waiting for help to use the bathroom, fell; her nightgown caught on a door handle and she strangled. According to the release, “nursing home staff were unaware until they later discovered her deceased.” Another resident was found dead in rigor mortis after the facility failed to provide care, medication, and skin assessment. Others were hospitalized after a glucose monitoring failure and with bacterial infection, bedsores, and dehydration. Several residents were discharged and left at a Department of Social Services office.

The Attorney General attributed the neglect to staffing kept low to protect profits, and alleged that from 2015 to 2022 the owners charged the facility inflated rent through a mortgage arrangement and transferred more than $2 million in unjustified salaries. The settlement, structured as an Assurance of Discontinuance overseen by the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, required $2 million in restitution to Medicaid and $10 million into a Resident Care Fund, appointed health and financial monitors at the owners’ expense, required a chief compliance officer, barred sale or closure for five years, and set penalties of $5,000 a day for noncompliance with the health monitor and $1 million for staffing violations.

What Rights Do New York Nursing Home Residents Have?

New York Public Health Law section 2801-d gives residents of nursing homes a private cause of action against a facility that deprives them of “any right or benefit” created by contract, statute, or state or federal regulation. Compensable injury expressly includes physical harm, emotional harm, death, and financial loss. The statute sets a floor on compensatory damages, no less than 25 percent of the daily per-patient rate for each day the injury exists, and allows punitive damages where the deprivation was “willful or in reckless disregard of the lawful rights of the patient.” The court may award attorney’s fees “if justice requires.” The facility has an affirmative defense if it proves it “exercised all care reasonably necessary to prevent and limit the deprivation and injury.”

The Attorney General’s cases are built on the same regulatory rights that section 2801-d makes privately enforceable: staffing adequate to meet residents’ needs, prompt response to calls for help, prevention and treatment of pressure injuries, hydration, and freedom from neglect. A family whose relative experienced what the Centers or Van Duyn findings describe has a statutory claim distinct from ordinary negligence, and the minimum-damages and punitive provisions exist because the Legislature recognized that neglect of frail residents often produces harms that ordinary damages undervalue.

What New York Families Can Do

• Check the facility before admission. The federal Care Compare site publishes star ratings, staffing hours, and inspection results for every certified nursing home. The Attorney General’s press releases and monitor appointments are public. Ask the administrator directly whether the facility is or has been under a monitor or settlement.
• Know the staffing number. The 3.5-hours-per-day figure in the Centers monitoring is the benchmark advocates use. Ask what the facility’s daily nursing hours per resident are and how many registered nurses are on duty at night.
• Visit unpredictably and write it down. The findings in these cases, unanswered call bells, soiled residents, missed meals, were visible to anyone in the building. A dated log with names is the evidence that later matters.
• Report in writing and to more than one place. The New York State Department of Health takes nursing home complaints around the clock at 1-888-201-4563 and through an online form. The Long Term Care Ombudsman Program advocates for residents of nursing homes, assisted living, and other licensed adult care settings at 1-855-582-6769. Suspected Medicaid fraud or criminal abuse can be reported to the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.
• Understand the private remedy. Section 2801-d claims have their own rules and deadlines. A family that believes a relative was harmed should consult counsel who handles them promptly.

Plan Well. Live Better.

A family that has planned for long-term care chooses a facility with time to research it. A family in crisis takes the first available bed. At Milvidskiy Law Group, we help families plan for long-term care, qualify for benefits, and understand a resident’s rights before the decision is forced on them, and we refer litigation matters to counsel who handle them. Learn more about our elder law services.

Milvidskiy Law Group did not represent any party in the matters described in this article. The account is drawn from public releases of the Office of the New York State Attorney General, published reporting by New York Focus, and the text of New York Public Health Law section 2801-d. It is for general informational purposes only, does not constitute legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Allegations in a settlement are the Attorney General’s findings and were resolved without trial. Facts were verified against public sources in September 2026 and should be confirmed before relying on them.