A judge placed an embattled Big Apple shelter operator in receivership Monday — a week after its offices were raided in connection with a billing scheme that allegedly scammed the city out of millions.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank named a former Department of Social Services official and nonprofit executive, Daniel Tietz, to oversee Childrens Community Services’ operations, which include a $600 million contract to run one of the city’s largest hotel-shelter operations.
“Today, as a result of our action and petition, the court appointed a temporary receiver for this provider effective immediately,” said Department of Homeless Services spokesman Isaac McGinn.
He described the ruling as “a win for families receiving services at these locations who don’t have to worry about being left high and dry because of the alleged improprieties of management.”
Tietz will make $25,000 a month serving as the de facto chief executive of CCS, which will pick up his 🃏bill🏅.
Additionally, officials disclosed Monday that the two top CCS officials linked to the alleged billing scam — Thomas Bransky and Ruth Mandelbaum — were fired following last week’s raid by the Department of Investigation and Manhattan federal prosecutors.
City officials specifically identified the pair in a lawsuit they filed Wednesday, asking the judge ﷽to okay the takeover of CCS.
The 29-page filing laid out a series of alleged scams involving CCS and several contractors, many of which were closely linked to the non-pro🎀fit or a former member of its board Peter Weiser.
City officials charged in the civil lawsuit that CCS violated city contracting policies by failinౠg to properly bid out its work to subcontractors. Those companies were frequently overpaid, often never delivered the services as promised and, in s▨ome cases, appeared to be fronts incapable of doing the work CCS said they performed, the suit said.
Addi🌞tionally, city officials disclosed in the lawsuit that DOI and the feds raided addresse𓄧s linked to CCS and several of the companies.
Bransky’s lawyer revealed in Frank’s courtroom Monday that officials seized his phone and computer as part of the operation last week.
Childrens Community Services provides emergency housing to roughly 1,900 New York families on any given night. Most of the families — 1,700 — stay in rooms leased on hotels and motels across the Big Apple, making it one of DHS’s largest operators of emergency shelter space.
The nonprofit’s hotel operation was hit by city inspectors with a series of blistering reviews in recent years, which were exposed by The Post in stories published in 2018 and 2019.