By Frankie Edozien
The New York Post
Copyright 2007 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
NEW YORK — A former Fire Department official was slapped with a $6,500 fine yesterday by the Conflict of Interest Board for taking thousands of dollars in gifts from an FDNY contractor.
As FDNY assistant commissioner for medical affairs, John Clair was partly responsible for evaluating a $4.3 million medical-billing contract with ScanHealth. Clair initially brought ScanHealth to the FDNY in 2001.
Soon after, the company paid $2,952 for him to attend a conference in Hawaii, $1,129 for another in Atlanta and bought him numerous dinners and even tickets to “Mamma Mia!” on Broadway. Clair also arranged for the company to use FDNY headquarters in Brooklyn for part of a two-day conference in New York.
Sources said Clair was forced to resign from his $109,000 job after his shenanigans were brought to light. He worked for the FDNY from 2000 until 2005.
In his signed statement to the board, Clair acknowledged that “as a public servant and because I was in a position to evaluate ScanHealth’s work ... that my acceptance of the gifts [was] inappropriate.”