Queens Defenders founder Lori Zeno pleads not guilty to stealing $60K to fund luxury lifestyle
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Queens Defenders founder Lori Zeno pleads not guilty to stealing $60K to fund luxury lifestyle
Lori Zeno, 64, and her ex-con boyfriend, Rashad Ruhani, 55, were indicted last week on charges they stole some $60,000 for personal expenses. The couple used the nonprofit’s credit cards and the rewards points they accrued to pay for their honeymoon to Bali, the feds allege. They bought an 85-inch television for $3,300, paid for a $2,600 steak dinner, and got their teeth whitened for $600, they said. Zeno served as the executive director of the Queens Defenders from 2018 until she was forced out of the job in January. She hired a woman who lives in Saudi Arabia, who never showed up for work, according to prosecutors.
Zeno, 64, and her ex-con boyfriend, Rashad Ruhani, 55, were indicted last week on charges they stole some $60,000 for personal expenses, using their organization’s accounts to pay the rent for their $6,000-a-month Astoria penthouse apartment, which they claimed was being used for “client defense” and “foster parent care.”
Queens Defenders provides legal representation to criminal defendants who can’t afford to hire lawyers.
The couple used the nonprofit’s credit cards and the rewards points they accrued to pay for their honeymoon to Bali, and spent big at Louis Vuitton, Bloomingdale’s, Ralph Lauren and Neiman Marcus stores, the feds allege.
They bought an 85-inch television for $3,300, paid for a $2,600 steak dinner, and got their teeth whitened for $600, the feds allege. Zeno used a Queens Defenders credit card to pay for a December vacation at a resort in Santa Monica, Calif., according to court documents.
On Wednesday, she appeared in Brooklyn Federal Court, where Magistrate Judge Joseph Maritolo set her bond at $500,000 secured by her sister, brother-in-law and son.
“Some things are not quite what they appear to be,” her lawyer, Anthony Ricco, said outside the courtroom Wednesday, adding that he’s still learning about the case against Zeno, who is barred from contacting Ruhani as part of her bail conditions.
Zeno served as the executive director of the Queens Defenders from 2018 until she was forced out of the job in January and Ruhani was fired.
She hired Ruhani, who was paroled after 26 years in state prison in 2022 for a robbery conviction, as a client advocate in October 2023, and started a romance soon after, according to court documents.
In August 2024, Zeno and Ruhani were married in a religious ceremony, but prosecutors don’t believe the marriage is legally recognized since “both Zeno and Ruhani were married to other individuals,” they wrote in a June 11 filing seeking Ruhani’s detention.
Zeno promoted Ruhani in June 2024 to a position overseeing Queens Defenders’ youth programs, the feds allege, and Zeno hired Ruhani’s relatives and associates, including his daughter, to positions where they “did little or no substantive work,” according to the court filing.
In November, Zeno hired a woman Ruhani had married about a decade earlier as a $60,000-a-year director of a nonexistent “health and wellness” program, the feds said. The woman, who lives in Saudi Arabia, never showed up for work, according to prosecutors.
Ruhani was arrested last week. Prosecutors asked he be locked up because of his record and his ties to Saudi Arabia.
Queens Defenders received roughly $368,000 in federal funds via the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development. The couple is charged with theft of federal funds and wire fraud.
Earlier this year, the city reassigned the group’s contracts to Brooklyn Defenders, a separate nonprofit that represents poor defendants in that borough.