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Friday, January 6, 2023
Bronx Chamber of Commerce - Bronx Business News You Can Use
Attorney General James Announces Sentencing of Former Nursing Home Employee for Raping a Resident
Former Shore Winds Nursing Home Employee Khadka Pradhan Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison
New York Attorney General Letitia James today announced the sentencing of Khadka Pradhan, 52, of Rochester, for raping and sexually assaulting an 81-year-old nursing home resident suffering from dementia at the Shore Winds Nursing Home in Rochester in September 2021, where he formerly worked as a housekeeper. This morning in Monroe County Court, Judge Caroline E. Morrison sentenced Pradhan to 25 years in prison on those charges, to be served concurrently, and 20 years of post-release supervision. In November 2022, a jury convicted Pradhan of Rape in the First Degree, Criminal Sexual Act in the First Degree, and Endangering the Welfare of an Incompetent or Physically Disabled Person in the First Degree, and other lower-level offenses.
“When a New Yorker enters a nursing home, they and their families expect that they will be treated with care and respect,” said Attorney General James. “Khadka Pradhan committed hideous, shocking crimes, violating an elderly nursing home resident who trusted she would be safe at Shore Winds Nursing Home. No time served can ease the pain forced upon one of our most vulnerable, but make no mistake, my office will always go after violent criminals and ensure they are held accountable for threatening New Yorkers’ safety.”
Attorney General James would like to thank the Rochester Police Department, the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office, and the Monroe County Crime Laboratory for their valuable assistance in this investigation, and the New York State Department of Health for promptly referring this matter to the Office of the Attorney General (OAG).
This matter was investigated by OAG's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU). MFCU Detective Stacey DiSanto investigated the matter under the supervision of Deputy Chief, Commanding Officer William Falk.
The case was presented to the jury by Special Assistant Attorney General William T. Gargan, MFCU Rochester Regional Office Director, under the supervision of MFCU Chief of Criminal Investigations Thomas O’Hanlon. Senior Auditor-Investigator Kaitlynn Arias and MFCU Electronic Investigative Support Systems Analyst Randall Kent provided support to the trial team. MFCU is led by Director Amy Held and Assistant Deputy Attorney General Paul J. Mahoney. MFCU is a part of the Division for Criminal Justice, which is led by Chief Deputy Attorney General José Maldonado and overseen by First Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Levy.
Reporting Medicaid Provider Fraud: MFCU defends the public by addressing Medicaid provider fraud and protecting nursing home residents from abuse and neglect. If an individual believes they have information about Medicaid provider fraud or about an incident of abuse or neglect of a nursing home resident, they can file a confidential complaint online on the OAG website or by calling the MFCU hotline at (800) 771-7755. If the situation is an emergency, they should call 911.
MFCU’s total funding for federal fiscal year (FY) 2023 is $65,717,936. Of that total, 75 percent, or $49,288,452, is awarded under a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The remaining 25 percent, totaling $16,429,484 for FY 2023, is funded by New York state. Through MFCU’s recoveries in law enforcement actions, it regularly returns more to the state than it receives in state funding.
Reality Show Cast Member Jennifer Shah Sentenced To 78 Months In Prison For Running Nationwide Telemarketing Fraud Scheme
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that JENNIFER SHAH was sentenced today by United States District Judge Sidney H. Stein to 78 months in prison for running a nationwide telemarketing fraud scheme. SHAH previously pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with telemarketing.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “With today’s sentence, Jennifer Shah finally faces the consequences of the many years she spent targeting vulnerable, elderly victims. These individuals were lured in by false promises of financial security, but in reality, Shah and her co-conspirators defrauded them out of their savings and left them with nothing to show for it. This conviction and sentence demonstrate once again that we will continue to vigorously protect victims of financial fraud and hold accountable those who engage in fraudulent schemes.”
According to the Superseding Indictment and statements made in court proceedings and filings:
From at least 2012 until her arrest in March 2021, SHAH was an integral leader of a wide-ranging, nationwide telemarketing fraud scheme that victimized thousands of innocent people. The scheme principally involved selling those victims so-called “business services” in connection with the victims’ purported online businesses (the “Business Opportunity Scheme”). In particular, SHAH knowingly and intentionally facilitated the sale of “leads” — contact information for potential victims who had been identified as susceptible to the scheme’s lies — to sales floors that were perpetrating the Business Opportunity Scheme and, during the latter portion of her participation in the scheme, owned and operated one of the sales floors that was part of the scheme.
Many of SHAH’s victims were elderly or vulnerable. Many of those people suffered significant financial hardship and damage. At SHAH’s direction, victims were defrauded over and over again until they had nothing left. She and her co-conspirators persisted in their conduct until the victims’ bank accounts were empty, their credit cards were at their limits, and there was nothing more to take.
SHAH was not deterred by the Federal Trade Commission’s investigations or enforcement actions, nor by learning that dozens of her co-conspirators had been arrested by federal law enforcement, pled guilty for their roles in the scheme, and that two were convicted at trial. SHAH was not ignorant of these developments: she took a series of increasingly extravagant steps to conceal her criminal conduct from the authorities. She directed others to lie, she put businesses and bank accounts in the name of others, she required payment in cash, she instructed others to delete text messages and electronic documents, she moved some of her operations overseas, and she tried to put computers and other evidence beyond the reach of investigators. These efforts were not short-lived or narrow in scope. She engaged in a yearslong, comprehensive effort to hide her continued role in the scheme.
In addition to the prison term, SHAH, 49, of Salt Lake City, Utah, was sentenced to five years of supervised release. She was also ordered to forfeit $6,500,000, 30 luxury items, and 78 counterfeit luxury items, and to pay $6,645,251 in restitution.
Mr. Williams praised the outstanding investigative work of Homeland Security Investigations’ El Dorado Task Force.
MAYOR ADAMS ANNOUNCES LAWSUITS AGAINST THREE LANDLORDS WHOSE BUILDINGS HAVE DANGEROUS CONDITIONS, HISTORY OF THOUSANDS OF CODE VIOLATIONS
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Corporation Counsel Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix today announced that the city has filed two lawsuits against landlords Alma Realty Corp. and Empire Management America Corp. for allowing thousands of residents to live in dangerous conditions as a result of thousands of code violations. The suits seek to improve the living conditions of the thousands of tenants in more than 20 buildings collectively owned by the two landlords. Additionally, the city’s Law Department today entered into a separate agreement with a third landlord — Sentinel Real Estate Corporation — that sets time frames for repairs. The three actions seek the correction of approximately 2,100 violations in buildings located in Upper Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.
“All New Yorkers deserve to live in safe, clean homes, which is why we will not tolerate landlords who repeatedly flout the law and put the health and wellbeing of tenants at risk,” said Mayor Adams. “Alma Reality, Empire Management America, and Sentinel Real Estate allowed thousands of code violations to go unchecked for years, endangering the well-being of thousands of residents. These lawsuits and agreement underscore our administration’s commitment to more aggressive enforcement actions against bad actors and deterring this sort of negligence in the future.”
The three cases are a continuation of the city’s ramped-up, comprehensive enforcement against landlords violating the law. One lawsuit alleges that Alma has maintained dangerous and unsanitary conditions in 13 buildings, where more than 800 violations remain uncorrected. Some of the worst conditions in these buildings include deteriorating facades, defective electrical wiring, missing fire doors, lead-based paint hazards, and infestations of rats and mice. The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) also previously sued Alma over two of these buildings.
The lawsuit against Empire is for hazardous conditions in eight buildings, where over 300 violations remain uncorrected. Among the worst conditions in those buildings are deteriorating facades, defective elevators, non-code-compliant sprinklers, illegal gas connections, and failure to maintain fire suppression systems. Empire has also previously been sued by HPD.
The agreement with Sentinel comes after more than 1,000 violations in its portfolio. The worst conditions in those buildings included unsafe facades, unsafe sidewalk sheds, illegal gas installations, unsafe electrical wiring and unpermitted electrical work, roach and mice infestations, and lead-based paint hazards. Sentinel immediately agreed to make repairs and has already corrected approximately 200 violations. Repairs to the approximately 800 additional violations remain ongoing, and today’s agreement provides detailed timetables for correction of the remaining violations in six buildings. The agreement also provides that if Sentinel does not demonstrate substantial compliance within those time frames, the city may file a complaint and seek a court order, which Sentinel cannot oppose.
“The city has zero tolerance for landlords who break the law and put tenants and the public at risk,” said Corporation Counsel Hinds-Radix. “These new suits demonstrate our commitment to holding violators accountable and to ensuring landlords keep their buildings up to code. The Law Department has brought many lawsuits that have protected thousands of tenants, and we will continue these efforts on behalf of New Yorkers. They deserve nothing less.”
“Our administration will not allow landlords to abandon their tenants or force New Yorkers to live in unsafe conditions,” said New York City Chief Housing Officer Jessica Katz. “As part of our blueprint to house all New Yorkers, ‘Housing Our Neighbors,’ we make it clear that supporting tenants and giving them homes they can be proud of is a top priority. These legal actions demonstrate our fierce commitment to ensuring all New Yorkers have the safe, quality homes they deserve.”
The Law Department has opened more than 40 matters against landlords, seven of them in 2022. The city has now filed 25 suits against landlords since August 2019 and obtained court orders in 18 cases. Thousands of violations have already been corrected.
The Law Department — working closely with the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics and the chief housing officer — developed a large database that compiles violations issued across city agencies, including HPD, the New York City Department of Buildings, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Fire Department of the City of New York, the New York City Department of Sanitation, and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. The database weighs each violation by its severity and the degree of hazardousness, its impact on tenants, and the importance of achieving compliance. The three landlords in today’s lawsuits and agreement each own portfolios of buildings that include the worst-scoring buildings according to the database.
The Law Department develops these cases in close cooperation with the city’s chief housing officer and works in partnership with a multitude of city agencies charged with inspecting code violations.