SUNY Downstate must return LICH assets, Brooklyn judge rules
Cites SUNY’s `sinister purpose'
Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Carolyn Demarest found that the State University of New York Downstate (SUNY Downstate) violated a contractual obligation in the asset transfer of Long Island College Hospital (LICH) property and has ordered that LICH assets be transferred back to the hospital.
As previously reported in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, in May 2011, LICH requested and was granted the opportunity to transfer some of its assets to SUNY. The order was granted under the express declaration that “SUNY Downstate will continue [LICH’s] operation as a hospital.”
SUNY has since then made clear its intent to close LICH and cease its existence as a functioning hospital, in direct contradiction to its 2011 declaration. In June 2013, Demarest ordered SUNY to provide an accounting of the property transfer and related monies in an attempt to ensure that the parameters of the 2011 order were being followed.