Staff members from a Throggs Neck private therapy practice are accusing the owner of financial mismanagement, which resulted in some employees missing pay and at least one being denied unemployment benefits after being laid off in April.
The Bronx Times spoke with seven former employees, both on and off the record at Counseling & Psychotherapy (C&P) of Throggs Neck. They all said that the owner, Charles Bonerbo failed to provide 2024 W-2s and paystubs and several were missing at least one paycheck.
Two reported being told by government agencies that the company did not contribute to payroll taxes on their behalf, leaving them with no unemployment or Social Security benefits for 2024.
Through it all, the employees, all of whom have left C&P, said they experienced a confusing lack of transparency about what was happening at their workplace.
When contacted by the Bronx Times, Bonerbo was clear about the source of the problem. He said the business is on the brink of collapse due to debts owed by the previous owners, Jay Bertin and Phillip Kawasch. Bonerbo worked under them as a staff therapist for 10 years before buying the business from them in 2021.
He told the Bronx Times that the previous owners owed significant back taxes that he was unaware of when he took over. C&P’s current financial woes entirely stem from the era of Bertin and Kawasch, who owned the business for 36 years, he said.
A former staffer at C&P, who worked payroll during the time when issues began, told the Bronx Times she believes Bonerbo’s version of events is true and that he did what he could to rectify the situation. However, she too left the company in June after failing to receive timely paychecks.
Both previous owners dispute Bonerbo’s accusations. Bertin and Kawasch said in a statement to the Bronx Times that they owed no back taxes and that they provided Bonerbo with three years of comprehensive accounting records, offering more if needed.
They said their attorney advised them not to give a media interview but expressed concern for the business they owned for decades. They kept in touch with some former employees and heard secondhand about the ongoing problems.
“We feel deeply troubled about what we hear concerning difficulties our former staff have faced, specifically regarding not being paid for their work,” they wrote in the statement.
The Bronx Times was unable to find evidence that Bertin and Kawasch did or did not owe back taxes. They were both named in a 2023 lawsuit, which remains ongoing, for $78,000 in back rent from a previous office building at 3612 East Tremont Ave., but their attorney moved for the case to be dismissed, saying that no renewal lease was in effect at the time.
The current financial challenges appear to spell disaster for the longstanding therapy practice that has served the community’s mental health needs for more than 40 years, now located in a single-family house at 3517 East Tremont Ave.
Several employees interviewed for this story worked at C&P for years or even decades. They said things started off well when Bonerbo took over but started going downhill in 2023. In the past year or so, at least half the therapy staff has resigned, they said.
Today, Bonerbo said he is only able to pay remaining employees with funds from a loan and that he hasn’t received his own salary in over a year.
“We are behind, I’m not gonna deny that,” he said. However, “There is nothing shady going on.”
‘Disrespectful and despicable’
Employees said they never received a straightforward explanation about the business being in trouble, or didn’t believe Bonerbo’s version of events. Before long, a lack of trust began festering at the once happy workplace.
Vivian Columbano, 72, worked at C&P from 2003 until she was laid off in April 2025. As a part-time office manager, she was responsible for patient intakes, verifying insurance benefits and other administrative work.
She said she doesn’t buy Bonerbo’s blaming of the previous owners. “I don’t trust him. I don’t believe him at all,” Columbano said.
In her years under Bertin and Kawasch —and the first couple years under Bonerbo— she said she was always paid properly, received W-2s annually and had no problems. But things started to go wrong in early 2023 and she still doesn’t understand why.
According to Columbano, employees stopped receiving pay stubs with their checks —some of which were personal checks from Bonerbo— and two of her own paychecks bounced.
In Aug. 2024, Bonerbo cut Columbano’s hours per week from 14 down to 10. In early 2025, she began inquiring about her missing W-2.
The payroll manager initially told her the forms were delayed because the IRS was sending them via email. But she later said some employees’ email addresses were incorrect, causing further delays, according to Columbano.
As months went on, the payroll manager continued to blame administrative errors. At one point, she told Columbano that the website to access the tax forms was down, then later said the IRS had tried to mail the documents but again had incorrect addresses.
Finally, on March 5, Columbano received a text stating that she could pick up a paycheck and W-2 but then Bonerbo sent an all-staff email the next day, stating that the W-2s were still delayed.
He blamed the payroll company, ADP, saying that it had sent inaccurate employee addresses to a new company, Paychex.
Bonerbo said the problem had finally been rectified. “New W-2 forms were sent out today via express mail from Paychex. We expect that you will receive them early next week,” he wrote in a March 6 email, which Columbano provided to the Bronx Times.
But not only did the forms never arrive, Columbano said they were already using Paychex, not ADP, during that time and that Bonerbo refused to believe her, even when she showed documentation.
To this day, therapists and other staff have still not received their W-2s. As a result, when Columbano was let go in April, she was unable to collect unemployment.
Not having valid proof of income was one problem. But Columbano also said the state told her in March that C&P had not paid into taxes throughout fiscal year 2024, and therefore, there were no unemployment funds for her to collect.
After being denied benefits, Columbano said she confronted Bonerbo multiple times, including in an Aug. 29 email to him and the payroll manager.
“The Department of Labor informed me that C&P did not make any contributions in 2024 and therefore I am not entitled to any benefits. I firmly believe you are not surprised by this,” she wrote in the email.
“How could you have sat there face to face with me knowing that no 2024 contributions to unemployment were made and I would not be able to collect what is lawfully due me. How disrespectful and despicable.”
Eventually, Columbano received a substitute W-2, a typed summary of yearly earnings and tax deductions on company letterhead. But without pay stubs, Columbano had no way of knowing whether that information was accurate.
Columbano, and at least one other former employee, said they believe Bonerbo did not pay taxes. “What did he do with the money he took out of my check?” she said. “I’m really annoyed and upset and hurt by it.”
Columbano’s job paid $17 per hour. Even though unemployment would not have provided much, she believed she was still entitled to several months of benefits — and that Bonerbo had told her as much when he let her go.
“I relied on that income. It wasn’t a lot,” she said.
All the back-and-forth regarding W-2s and bad checks caused “a lot of stress for everyone,” she said. At least nine therapists have left C&P since the summer, Columbano said.
The situation was a loss for the entire community, she said. As one of the few private therapy practices in the Bronx, Columbano said she and her colleagues were always busy and once enjoyed good camaraderie in the East Tremont house-office.
“We were like family,” she said.
But gradually, as Bonerbo failed to explain what was going on, the mood changed. Columbano said that Bonerbo and the payroll manager began “disassociating themselves” with her, to the point where they’d order lunch for themselves without asking her — a turn from the friendly atmosphere previously enjoyed.
In a May 12 email to her former coworkers, Columbano decided to talk about her issues with the company. Since most therapists worked remotely or part-time, they hadn’t taken collective action or even spoken as a group about problems at the business.
“I wasn’t really surprised by [being laid off] because over the last few months I have become more of an annoyance to Charles than an asset,” Columbano wrote.
“My questioning both of them [Bonerbo and the payroll manager] have resulted in numerous different stories to me and my colleagues, all of which were inconsistent.”
She also fondly recalled the friendships the staff had built over the years.
“I have worked with many of you for a long time and I remember how things were before Covid,” said Columbano in the email. “We would see each other at the office … and talk about restaurants we went to, vacations, TV shows that we were watching, and our families. Those good times will never be forgotten.”
For Columbano, the end of her long career at C&P was especially upsetting because she saw no signs of trouble when Bonerbo first took ownership.
When he started, Bonerbo held monthly all-staff meetings via Zoom, plus additional meetings for therapists to discuss challenges with specific clients. He was also in frequent communication about how aspects of their practice were impacted by the pandemic.
Everything started off great with him leading the business, said Columbano. “But we all got screwed.”
Besides Columbano, other longtime C&P employees were let go under Bonerbo’s ownership.
Anne De Thomas was office manager for 27 years and handled payroll for at least 20 of those years, she told the Bronx Times. But under Bonerbo, De Thomas said she came to believe there was “something illegal or unethical definitely going on.”
In the early days, with the previous owners, there was no computerized payroll system, De Thomas said. She used software to calculate the required tax and Social Security contributions and paid them manually, providing employees with pay stubs showing the deductions and the number of clients they saw during the pay period.
Later, under Bonerbo, De Thomas said she completed extensive training with the payroll company ADP and no longer had to pay the taxes manually. She also set up direct deposit for everyone, at Bonerbo’s direction.
But he then decided to train another employee on payroll and cut De Thomas’ hours from 40 down to 20. Not only that, she said Bonerbo became unexpectedly hostile towards her.
According to De Thomas, he told her that “just the sight of me annoys him,” and she was only allowed to be in the office on Thursday nights when he wasn’t there. She began working mostly from home.
Bonerbo fired De Thomas in Jan. 2024. She did receive unemployment benefits but also never received a W-2. Although it would’ve only shown two checks’ worth of income, she heard the same confusing explanations as others about why the documents were missing.
De Thomas said she now believes that starting in 2024 — after she was let go — the company did not pay into unemployment but still deducted taxes from everyone’s checks.
With no pay stubs, “No one knew what tax was being taken out,” she said.
By being fired, De Thomas felt she may have dodged a bullet. “My accountant said, ‘Be very glad you’re not working there, because he’s definitely doing something he should not be.’”
‘No transparency’
Since most C&P therapists did not work in the office regularly, it took them some time to grasp the magnitude of the problems.
A therapist named Elizabeth, who requested to have her last name withheld, said she resigned in Sept. “with a broken heart” after eight years part-time with C&P.
Elizabeth said she was sometimes told to wait up to five days after payday to deposit her checks, some of which were personal checks from Bonerbo.
After three checks bounced, “I just couldn’t deal with the stress of whether I’d get paid or not,” she said. “There was no transparency.”
Elizabeth said the company still owes her money, though she’s unsure of the exact amount. Insurance reimbursement takes time, and there is always a lag between seeing a client and receiving payment from their insurance company, she said.
The former C&P therapists said they didn’t understand the root of the problem or believe the explanations they heard from their boss.
If there were financial problems under the previous owners, Elizabeth said she doesn’t believe Bonerbo could have bought the company without knowing.
Elizabeth said she never knew of financial trouble at C&P — especially since Bonerbo owns a second therapy practice located on West 86th Street and Central Park West.
Therapists and clients alike were left hurting as a result of the turmoil, Elizabeth said. She had seen four of her clients throughout her entire eight years at C&P, and all clients had her personal cell phone number, she said.
“That’s the kind of therapist I am,” said Elizabeth. Even after the bounced checks, “I hung on another two, three months because of my patients.”
But amid all the problems, she said she could no longer stay, nor recommend that her clients continue there.
“Vivian [Columbano] told me a lot of people were leaving, and I just added to the list,” she said. “We’re not a priority for him [Bonerbo].”
Another therapist who was missing pay is Marian, who resigned in Feb. after working part-time at C&P since 2015.
Like others, Marian said she did not usually scrutinize her paychecks, since she was only at C&P once a week. But she gradually realized she had “a long gap between checks.”
The payroll manager told her the checks may be lost in the mail or that she herself might have misplaced them. When Marian went directly to Bonerbo, he defended his staffer.
Eventually, Marian said she received two personal checks from Bonerbo for about $100 each, with no pay stubs.
She estimated she is still owed at least $2,000. Although she didn’t know the exact amount, she said she saw eight clients at the Throggs Neck office each Saturday, plus virtual appointments during the week. “Whatever that would come to is more than $100.”
She quickly resigned after the paycheck fiasco, but later, like others, got mixed messages regarding the missing W-2s. She was eventually able to complete her taxes, but her accountant had to file additional paperwork with the IRS.
Above all, Marian and the others said that if Bonerbo had been more upfront about what was going on, it may have prevented a mass exodus.
“If you’re having financial problems, tell me,” she said. “Be honest with me.”
Reach Emily Swanson at eswanson@schnepsmedia.com or (646) 717-0015. For more coverage, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!
