Suozzi’s financial interests in a healthcare startup highlights blurred lines between politics and profit.
Suozzi’s financial interests in a healthcare startup highlights blurred lines between politics and profit. ·  View in browser
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The Northwell Health system became one of Clarapath’s biggest boosters. Photos: Terry Ballard via Flickr, Antony-22 via Wikimedia Commons. | Illustration: Leor Stylar
Suozzi’s unreported financial interest in a promising healthcare startup highlights blurred lines between politics and profit.
By Will Bredderman

Following back-to-back election losses for Nassau county executive, Tom Suozzi had by all accounts settled into the plush afterlife of a fallen New York politician.

After his first defeat in 2009, he worked as an advisor to Democrat-friendly investment bank Lazard, a consultant to James Dolan’s Cablevision empire, and an attorney with a six-figure gig at the politically wired law firm Harris Beach.

In 2014, months after his second defeat, Suozzi became an angel investor in a startup hatched at Nassau County’s legendary biology research institute, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Suozzi would later resurrect his political career and become a US Congressperson in 2016. That move came with financial disclosure requirements — but a New York Focus investigation has uncovered that Suozzi failed to provide an accounting of his stake in the startup, called Clarapath, until contacted by this reporter.

Further, after his electoral resuscitation, one of the House district’s most powerful stakeholders, the Northwell Health system, became one of Clarapath’s biggest boosters: piloting Clarapath’s technology at its facilities, investing millions into the company, and even leading a recent round of fundraising. As a consequence, Clarapath’s valuation has exploded — and so, experts said, has Suozzi’s potential payout when he decides to finally sell his shares.

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