Seven Maimonides Trustees Ask AG to Block Their Ouster From New Hospital Board

By Amanda D'Ambrosio

Seven trustees of Maimonides Medical Center are asking the state attorney general to block a recent decision that will oust them from the board once Maimonides becomes a part of the city’s public hospital system — a change they allege was based on their ongoing lawsuit against the merger.

A lawyer for the trustees sent a letter to New York State Attorney General Letitia James last week after a special board meeting in which members voted to change the hospital’s leadership structure. The vote was in preparation for New York City Health + Hospitals’ planned acquisition of Maimonides, a multibillion-dollar deal that proponents say is necessary to rescue the cash-strapped safety-net hospital. The transaction, which was initially supposed to close on April 1 of this year, has been delayed amid legal challenges from some board members and members of the Orthodox Jewish community.

The trustees, who are all involved in active litigation to block the deal, have been excluded from the board of the affiliated private corporation that will replace Maimonides Medical Center, according to a letter from Akiva Shapiro, an attorney with Holtzman Vogel who is representing the trustees. That board will govern the new affiliate, which will oversee employment and operations once the deal closes. The trustees have also been passed over for officer positions on the board of Maimonides Health Resources, Inc., a separate board, the letter said.

The decision to exclude the seven trustees, who are all Orthodox Jews, from the incoming board was based on their ongoing lawsuits against the transaction, Shapiro wrote in the letter, which is “illegal retaliation and discrimination for engaging in protected whistleblowing activities.”

 “Our clients’ efforts to protect and save Maimonides through salutary litigation is being used as cover to punish them and cleanse the surviving governance structure of dissenting fiduciaries,” the letter said. Shapiro also warned that the removal of the board members would eliminate representation for the Orthodox Jewish community. 

Sam Miller, a spokesman for Maimonides, said “these allegations are incorrect,” referring to the claims that trustees were excluded due to their ongoing lawsuit.

The trustees’ letter urged the attorney general’s office to require Maimonides to refrain from finalizing changes to the post-transaction board, and to consider the alleged discrimination as a reason to oppose the approval of the merger.

The attorney general’s office is reviewing the letter, a spokesperson said. But the spokesperson noted that the approval of the transaction will be determined by the court, not the attorney general’s office. The attorney general decided earlier this year that the transaction should be reviewed by the court rather than an administrative process, due to the merger’s significant impact on the local community.

The changes to the board come amid a drawn-out process to close the city’s planned takeover of Maimonides Health, which encompasses Maimonides Medical Center and its community hospital in Midwood. The transaction was announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul in October 2025, who provided more than $2 billion in grants from the state’s safety-net transformation program. H+H leadership planned to close the transaction before April 1, 2026, which was the start of the following fiscal year. 

Despite the planned closing date, the deal is still pending due to legal challenges and the ongoing regulatory process.

The seven Orthodox Jewish trustees filed a lawsuit to block the merger in Brooklyn Supreme Court last November. Maimonides has filed a motion to dismiss that lawsuit, and the case is ongoing.

 Community groups and Orthodox Jewish congregations have filed two additional challenges to block the merger in Albany Supreme Court. In the first lawsuit, a judge decided that the state’s Public Health and Health Planning Council, which oversees hospital ownership changes, must review the planned merger, and the council approved the deal. The second lawsuit is ongoing.