NY real estate bigwigs took $50M in kickbacks from pharma company, suit claims

New York real estate investor Rubin Schron and real estate attorney Leonard Grunstein have been accused of taking $50 million in kickbacks from Omnicare, a pharmaceutical company that serves the nursing home companies they each head. Schron, who owns the Woolworth Building, and Grunstein, a partner at Troutman Sanders, were two-thirds of a group that covered up a $50 million payout they received from Omnicare that enabled the company to continue to provide services at Mariner Health Care and Sava Senior Care, according to a complaint filed today by the U.S. Department of Justice. In the cover-up scheme, the trio allegedly masked the money as a payment for Omnicare’s acquisition of a two-person Mariner business unit that was not worth nearly $50 million. Omnicare will be forced to pay $98 million to states and to the federal government to settle the Medicare and Medicaid fraud charges associated with the case. [Crain’s]