The CEO of a company hired by New York City to provide housing and care for hundreds of immigrants abruptly resigned Friday after admitting he lied about his education record and DocGo being criticized over a $432 million lawsuit with the city. bids for contracts were scrutinized. .
Anthony Capone’s resignation comes after the Albany Times Union reported earlier in the day that Capone lied about having a graduate degree in artificial intelligence from Clarkson University. The university told the newspaper that Capone never attended the university.
Capone later admitted to the newspaper that he had never received a graduate degree from any institution of learning.
“I take full responsibility and will immediately correct all official resumes, profiles and any other materials in which this erroneous information appears,” he said in a statement.
The company confirmed Capone’s resignation in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, which said President and COO Lee Bienstock has been named the new CEO .
The filing cited “personal reasons” for his resignation, which is effective immediately.
DocGo was already under scrutiny when its no-bid contract with New York City came to light, raising questions about what services the company provides and the quality of those services. Neither the company nor city officials would volunteer to disclose details of the contract.
Earlier this month, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said there were “many unanswered questions and concerns” that prompted him to reject the city’s $432 million no-bid emergency contract with DocGo.
Rand said the concerns included a lack of “budget details to justify” the value of the contract and a lack of evidence that the company had “the expertise to deliver the contracted services.”
The City Comptroller is an independently elected official.
Rand’s decision to return the contract without approval to the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which signed the contract with DocGo, doesn’t derail the deal.
Mayor Eric Adams, who has authority over the comptroller, said: “We’re going to move forward with this.”
The New York Times reported in August that state Attorney General Letitia James had launched an investigation into the company, which some immigrants and their supporters accused of providing information about their ability to work, obtain health insurance and Other inaccurate information that could lead to immigrant deaths. Risking the ability to gain asylum.
The attorney general also reported whether security guards employed by DocGo mistreated and threatened them, including ordering immigrants not to talk to reporters.
DocGo started out as a healthcare services company, describing itself on its website as “providing high-quality healthcare services outside of the traditional hospital or clinic setting through our service lines: mobile healthcare, medical transportation and remote patient monitoring/chronic disease management” .” We are bringing the future of healthcare to patients’ doorsteps. “
During the pandemic, it has contracted with the city to provide COVID-19 testing and vaccinations.
Since then, it has expanded its services — inexplicably, critics say, beyond medical care and into back-office operations, providing transport, accommodation, food and care for hundreds or even thousands of asylum seekers. Many of them travel by bus to local cities outside of New York to other communities in the state.
The company has been trying to land a lucrative contract with the federal government worth billions of dollars
