He stole her coronary heart.
The founding father of the Queens Defenders authorized assist group — who admitted to embezzling greater than $100,000 from her personal group to gasoline a lavish life-style — blamed her ex-con lover as she was sentenced to federal jail Tuesday.
Lori Zeno, 66, claimed she was blinded by her emotions for her former employee-turned-co-defendant Rashad Ruhani, accusing him of pushing her to siphon from the non-profit to fund journeys to Bali, luxurious procuring sprees and a penthouse in Astoria.
“The person that swore earlier than God that he cherished me truly didn’t, and the profession I had spent over 40 years constructing resulted in shame,” a teary-eyed Zeno stated in Brooklyn federal courtroom.
“I used to be so stuffed with disgrace and humiliation that I can not even describe it,” she claimed.
However the plea didn’t appear to reach pulling Choose Rachel Kovner’s heartstrings, because the jurist sentenced Zeno to 3-and-a-half years behind bars.
In keeping with federal prosecutors, Zeno employed Ruhani, 56, to work for Queens Defenders in October 2023, when she served as government director for the group, which supplied authorized assist and neighborhood assist providers to low-income borough residents.
Zeno and Ruhani married in a non secular ceremony and the pair launched into their fraudulent scheme in summer season 2024, the feds stated.
Collectively, the lovebirds embezzled tons of of 1000’s of {dollars} from the authorized group — blowing the money on on international journey, effective eating and several other different luxuries, prosecutors have stated.
These included a $10,000 trip to Bali, a $1,700 getaway to a Santa Monica luxurious resort and a $3,300 85-inch TV that was put in of their penthouse pad, in keeping with courtroom papers.
Zeno was leasing the $6,000-a-month condominium, and lived there with Ruhani, the paperwork present. He individually bilked the Queens Defenders of $39,000 to go towards their hire, claiming the penthouse was getting used for “‘shopper defend’ and ‘foster dad or mum Care,’” prosecutors wrote within the filings.
Different fraudulent bills included a $600 invoice to pay for enamel whitening and charging the group over $4,000 to purchase a Louis Vuitton designer purse, in keeping with the indictment.
Letters filed by public defenders known as for Zeno to be locked up, calling the disgraced ex-attorney a “power-driven bully who dominated with intimidation.”
In a single instance, an lawyer accused Zeno of secretly recording her underlings with hidden cameras and audio gadgets to intimidate the workers.
“It’s tough—and goes towards the very fiber of our skilled identities—to submit this assertion to the Court docket and ask for the incarceration of one other,” one of many letters from a former Queens Defender staffer reads.
Zeno additionally gave comfortable no-show jobs to Ruhani’s family members, together with hiring a girl he was apparently legally married to for a non-existent “well being and wellness” program place with a wage of $60,000, the feds have stated.
That incident finally induced Queens Defenders to lose its metropolis contract to supply prison protection providers to low-income New Yorkers, in keeping with prosecutors.
The choose ripped Zeno through the sentencing listening to as being liable for the group shedding its $35 million metropolis contract.
“Ms. Zeno was actually the one that had essentially the most energy within the group to make this occur,” Kovner stated, referring to hooking up Ruhani’s family members with bogus jobs.
Ruhani was sentenced to about 4 years in jail throughout a separate continuing shortly earlier than Zeno’s listening to.
The ex-con — who beforehand spent 26 years behind bars on a theft conviction — apologized for stealing the cash and vowed to do higher when he will get out of jail.
The choose ordered each defendants to pay $656,349 in restitution to the Queens Defenders. Zeno will moreover need to pay $187,000 in forfeiture and Ruhani may have fork over $103,000.
The pair pleaded responsible this 12 months to wire fraud.
Zeno claimed behind tears that she was “not a silly lady” however an “clever” one, telling the courtroom she was haunted by “demons” that made her stray away from her morals and lose her promising profession.
She was ordered to give up for her jail time period on September 20.
