The CEO of a company hired by New York City to house and care for hundreds of migrants abruptly resigned Friday after admitting to lying about his educational achievements and as DocGo has come under scrutiny for its no-bid policy. $432 million contract with the city. .
Anthony Capone’s firing came after the Albany Times Union reported earlier in the day that Capone had lied about earning a degree in artificial intelligence from Clarkson University. The university told the newspaper that Capone had never attended the university.
Capone later admitted in the paper that he had never earned a degree from an educational institution.
“I take full responsibility and will immediately make corrections to all official biographies, profiles and other materials containing this incorrect information,” he had said in a statement.
The company confirmed Capone’s firing on Friday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, saying the company’s president and chief operating officer, Lee Bienstock, had been named the new CEO.
The filing cited “personal reasons” for his resignation, which was effective immediately.
DocGo was already under scrutiny when the no-bid contract with New York City came to light, raising questions about the services the company provided – and the quality of those services. Neither the company nor city officials were willing to voluntarily disclose details of the contract.
Earlier this month, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said there were “numerous outstanding issues and concerns” that prompted him to reject the city’s $432 million emergency no-bid contract with DocGo.
Among the concerns, Lander said, was a lack of “budget detail to justify” the value of the contract and a lack of evidence that the company “has the expertise to deliver the services for which it is contracted.”
The city comptroller is an independently elected official.
Lander’s decision to send the contract back without approval to the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which signed the contract with DocGo, cannot derail the deal.
Mayor Eric Adams has the authority to overrule the comptroller and has said, “We’re going to move forward with it.”
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 advocates accused of providing false information about their ability to work, obtain health care coverage and other actions that could yield. risk that they may be granted asylum.
The attorney general also reports whether security personnel hired by DocGo abused and threatened them, and ordered migrants not to speak to journalists.
DocGo started as a medical services company and described itself on its website as providing “high-quality medical care outside traditional hospital or clinic environments within our service lines: mobile healthcare, medical transportation, and remote patient monitoring/chronic disease management.” We bring the future of healthcare to the patient.”
During the pandemic, it contracted with the city to provide COVID-19 testing and vaccinations.
It has since expanded its services — inexplicably beyond medicine, critics say, and into the realm of logistics operations to transport, house, feed and care for hundreds, if not thousands, of asylum seekers — many of whom travel on buses outside New York . City to other communities in the state.
The company is trying to win a lucrative contract worth billions of dollars from the federal government
