The ex-con boyfriend of disgraced Queens Defenders founder Lori Zeno, plead guilty to his role in raiding hundreds of thousands of dollars from the public defender organization’s coffers.
Queens Defenders provides legal representation to criminal defendants who can’t afford to hire lawyers, but Zeno and boyfriend Rashad Ruhani used the organization as their personal piggy bank, stealing to pay the rent on their swanky $6,000-a-month Astoria penthouse apartment.
They used the nonprofit’s credit cards and the rewards points they accrued to pay for a honeymoon in Bali, buy items from Louis Vuitton, Bloomingdale’s, Ralph Lauren and Neiman Marcus stores, and treat themselves to goodies like a $3,300 85-inch television, a $2,600 steak dinner and $600 in teeth whitening.
On Thursday, Ruhani, 56, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy. He could face roughly 5 to 6 years behind bars, based on federal guidelines, when sentenced July 14. He remains locked up in MDC Brooklyn.
“I was issued a corporate card from Queens Defenders, which I used for personal expenditures,” he told Magistrate Judge Vera Scanlon. “I accessed funds that were not mine.”
Zeno pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in February.
Zeno hired Ruhani — who was paroled in 2022 after 26 years in state prison for a robbery conviction — as a client advocate in October 2023, and a romance bloomed soon after, according to the feds.
She promoted him in June 2024 to a position overseeing Queens Defenders’ youth programs, and hired hiss relatives and associates, including his daughter, to what were essentially no-show jobs. One job went to a woman Ruhani married about a decade earlier and who lives in Saudi Arabia. She never reported to work, according to prosecutors.
By August 2024, Zeno and Ruhani were married in a religious ceremony, though “both Zeno and Ruhani were married to other individuals,” prosecutors wrote in a June filing.
Charges are still pending against a third suspect, Kimberly Osorio, who the feds say helped Ruhani get rid of a phone while on a flight to Kennedy Airport before the feds could serve him with a device warrant and take it when they landed.
