Disgraced city Councilman Larry Seabrook’s mistress is set to spill the beans on his alleged control of the non-profits he showered with more than $1 million in council “slush” funds.  Read more in the New York Post.

The New York Times explores concerns among adoptive parents in the United States after reports that government officials in Hunan Province, in southern China, had seized babies from their parents and sold them into what the article called “a lucrative black market in children.”

Joanna Fan and her husband, Ziming Shen, have been accused of siphoning money more than $2.5 million in federal funds intended to provide nutritious lunches for children attending the nonprofit Red Apple Child Development Center preschool chain.   Read more in The New York Times.

As Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration probes oversized salaries for nonprofit executives whose organizations receive state funds, one group with a special relationship to the governor no longer has its highly paid chief executive – who is married to Cuomo’s cousin.  City Hall reports that Laurence Belinsky, the CEO and president of HELP USA, resigned from the homeless housing and services organization last month “to pursue private housing development.” Belinsky received more than $500,000 a year in compensation in 2008 and 2009, as the Wall Street Journal reported last week, but his family relationship to the governor has not been previously disclosed.

NEW YORK, Sept 13 (Reuters) – In a blow to advocates for New York City’s homeless poopulation, a Manhattan judge on Tuesday held that the city could terminate a program that offered rent subsidies to thousands of formerly homeless residents.

In a 21-page ruling, Supreme Court Justice Judith Gische ruled that the city and the Department of Homeless Services did not enter into binding contracts with recipients of the Advantage Program, which provides up to two years of rent subsidies to help New Yorkers transition from temporary emergency shelters.

“[N]o matter how laudable its goals, [the Advantage Program ] is nothing more than a social benefit program, which defendants had the right to terminate, based upon the lack of funding available for its continuation,” Gische wrote.

Earlier this year, the city announced that budget reductions would make it impossible to continue Advantage, which began in 2007.

On March 28, the Legal Aid Society sued on behalf of existing Advantage recipients to block the city from cutting the program, as it planned to do April 1.

In June, the Appellate Division, First Department, issued an order requiring the city to continue the payments to existing recipients.

Meanwhile, in a five-day trial before Justice Gische, the city argued that it had no legal obligation to make the payments.

NO INTENT TO BE CONTRACTUALLY BOUND

Justice Gische agreed.

“The defendants did not manifest an intent to be contractually bound to provide the benefits associated with the Advantage program,” she wrote.

But the First Department order means that the subsidies will continue unless the city moves to vacate that order.

Steve Banks, attorney-in-chief for Legal Aid, said in an interview that an appeal would be forthcoming from Legal Aid and Weil, Gotshal & Manges, which represented the recipients pro bono.

“This certainly seems like a case in which the city loses when it wins, since it will have to pay far more to shelter these families and individuals than by continuing to make the rental payments,” Banks said.

“We believe that the judge made the correct decision based upon the facts and the law,” said Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo in a statement. “The Advantage Program is a social program and not a series of contracts entered into by the City.”

The case is Jasmine Zheng et al v. The City of New York et al, New York Supreme Court, No. 400806-2011.

For Jasmine Zheng et al: Steven Banks of The Legal Aid Society and Konrad Cailteux, Isabella Lacayo and Debra Dandeneau of Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

For New York City et al: Eric Rundbaken, David Cooperstein and Abigail Goldenberg of the New York City Law Department and Michele Ovesey of the Department of Homeless Services.

Hundreds of mentally ill people who have been confined to nursing homes, sometimes in prisonlike conditions, would move to apartments or other housing within three years under a legal settlement with New York State. Read more in The New York Times.

David P. Rosen, the former chief executive of MediSys Health Network, a nonprofit hospital chain, was convicted on Monday in a far-reaching scheme to pay bribes to three New York State legislators in return for beneficial treatment toward his health care organization.  Read more in The New York Times.

Facing a budget deficit exceeding $11 billion, the State of Illinois in recent weeks has begun challenging the property tax exemptions of some of its best-known hospitals, saying they should pay more because they are not providing enough charity care.  Read more in The New York Times.