Public Defenders
Founding father of NYC public defender workplace indicted on fraud expenses
June 16, 2025, 10:15 am CDT
Lori Zeno, heart, then the chief director of the Queens Defenders, addresses the media exterior the Queens courthouse following with the arraignment of a police officer on June 25, 2020, in New York. (Picture by Kevin Hagen/The Related Press)
The founding father of one in every of New York Metropolis’s public defender workplaces is dealing with fraud expenses for allegedly taking cash from the group for luxurious holidays, a penthouse condominium and designer garments.
Lori Zeno, who helped begin the Queens Defenders in 1996, and her husband, Rashad Ruhani, stole no less than $60,000 from the group between June 2024 and January 2025, in accordance with an indictment unsealed by the U.S. lawyer’s workplace for the Japanese District of New York on Wednesday. They have been charged with wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, cash laundering conspiracy and theft of funds.
The New York Occasions, Regulation.com and Bloomberg Regulation have protection.
Zeno grew to become the chief director of the Queens Defenders in 2018 however was pressured to step down in January following allegations of mismanagement and misappropriation of funds, federal prosecutors say.
Zeno grew to become romantically concerned with Ruhani after he joined the Queens Defenders as a consumer advocate in 2023, in accordance with federal prosecutors. Zeno promoted him to a place managing the group’s youth program in June 2024.
Additionally in June 2024, Zeno and Ruhani allegedly used the group’s bank cards to purchase clothes from Neiman Marcus, Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton, federal prosecutors say. After getting married a couple of months later, they used company bank cards to pay for motels, meals and jewellery throughout their honeymoon in Bali. Additionally they used the bank cards to pay for bills at a luxurious resort in Santa Monica, California.
The pair moreover requested to be reimbursed $39,000 after they stated they rented a penthouse condominium to deal with a homeless youngster for 2 months, in accordance with federal prosecutors.
Amongst different allegations, federal prosecutors say Zeno gave Ruhani’s daughter and a lady he had been married to “no-show jobs” and paid them salaries of $80,000 and $60,000, the New York Occasions stories. Prosecutors have alleged that the girl was employed to guide a pretend well being and wellness program and didn’t reside in the US.
The New York Occasions says Zeno couldn’t be reached for remark. As of Friday, Regulation.com stories that she was not in custody.
Regulation.com additionally says legal professionals for Ruhani, who was in custody, declined to remark.
In an announcement supplied to Regulation.com, Doneath Powell, chair of the Queens Defenders’ board of administrators, stated the group was “deeply saddened by the character of those allegations in opposition to two former staff.”
Brooklyn Defender Providers introduced in March that it might take over the Queens Defenders’ $32 million contract with the town, Regulation.com stories.
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