Long Island nursing home executive Benjamin Landa nominated for ambassadorship to Hungary

Benjamin Landa, a son of Holocaust survivors who went on to run New York nursing homes that have come under fire from state authorities, has been nominated by President Donald Trump to become ambassador to Hungary.

Landa's nursing home interests have included Cold Spring Hills in Woodbury, where he and his partners were ordered to pay $2 million in restitution and install an independent monitor after state Attorney General Letitia James sued over alleged resident neglect and fraud. She separately sued a different New York nursing home in which Landa had a small ownership stake as a landlord but not operator of the property.

The Cold Spring Hills case is on appeal, and the White House and Landa's attorney both dismissed the allegations. "No one cares about phony probes by disgraced Attorney General Letitia James," a White House official said on condition of anonymity. "Benjamin Landa is a well-respected New York business leader, and he is highly qualified to serve as United States Ambassador to Hungary."

The Lawrence resident's nomination, delivered last month, is pending confirmation in the U.S. Senate but has not moved out of committee during the federal shutdown. A spokesman for James declined to comment on the nomination.

  M  ost of Landa’s family, who resided in Hungary, were killed in the Holocaust, according to Landa's longtime attorney Howard Fensterman. Landa’s father, his father's first wife and their three daughters were deported to Auschwitz, he said, and only Landa’s father survived. His mother’s family members also were killed by the Nazis, Fensterman said.

"Hitler didn’t exterminate his family," Fensterman said. "Instead, he goes back representing the greatest country in the world, which has given his parents an opportunity and has given him an opportunity to live and prosper in this country. And now he goes back as the United States of America’s ambassador. So, Hitler lost."

Nursing home portfolio

In the 2010s, Landa and his then-business partner, Bent Philipson, boasted they were the largest for-profit nursing home company in the state. Landa is the CEO of SentosaCare.

But as Landa seeks to serve as ambassador, he has been divesting from all of his nursing home businesses over the last year, Fensterman said.

In September 2024, Landa sold his Far Rockaway nursing home, Premier Nursing and Rehab Center, for $47 million. A year later, he sold Meadow Park Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Fresh Meadows, Queens, for $23 million.

In 2020, Newsday detailed deaths inside Cold Spring Hills, which was previously owned by Landa and Philipson. Landa left the business in 2019, separating from his business partner, Fensterman said.

Two years later, James sued the nursing home and its owners.

Fensterman, in an interview Thursday, described the lawsuits as frivolous, politically motivated and amounting to no findings of fault against Landa. "The reason he was sued," Fensterman said, is "this was political warfare against him because of his known support of President Trump."

Political activity

Landa has long been a frequent political donor, both through his own contributions and through the nursing homes he controls. He has given over $679,000 in his own name to state and federal campaigns and committees, most of which for Republican causes; nearly half the funds have been given over the last two years. His most recent campaign contribution, $7,500, went to Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman last month.

A spokesman for James pointed to the office’s past statements on Landa and his nursing home business.

In December 2022, announcing her lawsuit into Cold Spring Hills, Landa and the other owners of the nursing home, James said in a statement: "Cold Spring Hills’ owners put profits over patient care and left vulnerable New Yorkers to live in heartbreaking and inhumane conditions."

In 2020, in response to a Newsday investigation into the conditions in the nursing homes at Cold Spring Hills, Landa said he had "no knowledge of anything related to the operations" and he was "never an owner of the operating nursing home." Instead, he said, he served as a limited part owner of a company that served as its landlord.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) declined to comment on Landa's appointment, which requires confirmation in the Republican-controlled Senate. Gillibrand is the ranking member of the chamber's special Committee on Aging, which sometimes handles issues of nursing homes and health care fraud.

A Jewish news outlet, Belaaz, reported in September that Landa met with Trump and political adviser Roger Stone in the Oval Office. Belaaz described the meeting as a "significant step" in Landa’s desire to serve as the ambassador to Hungary.

Fensterman could not confirm the veracity of the report but said Landa had interviewed with Trump.

For "an Orthodox Jew to be appointed ambassador, whose family was exterminated by the Nazis, to me, is far more important than any of the frivolous allegations," Fensterman said.

Newsday's Laura Figueroa Hernandez contributed to this story.