- Farrah Rubani, 51, was indicted on December 13 on Medicaid fraud charge
- She is accused of embezzling $11 million in New York state Medicaid funds
- Rubani is CEO of home health aide company Hopeton Care in Brooklyn
- Prosecutors say she used money to fund lavish lifestyle with her husband
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| Farrah Rubani |
The CEO of a New York home health aide
company has been accused of embezzling $11 million from Medicaid to fund
a lavish lifestyle with her NYPD cop husband.
Farrah
Rubani, 51, was arrested on December 18 on a first-degree grand larceny
charge in an alleged scam to submit false claims through her
Brooklyn-based company Hopeton Care.
The
New York Attorney General's office claimed in a civil suit that Rubani
and her partners billed New York State Medicaid for home care for
children when was none provided, then paid the kids' parents to stay
quiet, the New York Daily News reported.
'Rubani misrepresented to parents… that the Medicaid program permitted
Hopeton to pay them directly to care for their children instead of
sending a nurse, notwithstanding the fact that these parents were not
qualified to provide the nursing services that their children required,'
the AG said in the lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
State investigators allege that Rubani, a native of Pakistan, stole nearly $4 million in that scheme alone.
Rubani's husband is 50th Precinct NYPD Officer Richard Tricario.
Prosecutors
allege that he spent some of the ill-gotten money on a $250,000
Bentley, a $60,000 Dodge Ram pickup and a $1.8 million Cape Cod vacation
home that the couple nicknamed 'Rich At Heart'.
Tricario
has not been charged criminally. But the attorney general's office
maintains that he wrote nearly $3 million in checks on the couple's
joint bank account between 2016 and 2018.
Rubani's lawyer, Richard Harrow, said his
client 'denies the allegations and looks forward to presenting evidence
that will exonerate her.'
Meanwhile,
Rubani's assets have been seized and the home health aides she employs
have been faced with the tough decision between abandoning their
patients and working without pay.
Among the patients in danger of losing their caregivers is Queens centenarian Rose Lawson, 102, the Daily News reports.
Lawson's
only living family is niece Patricia Murphy, who lives in Texas and has
been paying $180 a day out of pocket to contribute to her aunt's care.
On Friday, frustrated Hopeton Care employees gathered outside of the company's offices in Midwood to demand their paychecks.
'They lying every Friday,' Yolene Jean-Charles told the Daily News.
The AG's office says it has twice released funds so the home health aides could be paid.
A spokeswoman for the office said that complaints should be handled through the Medicaid managed care organization.
Full Article & Source:
CEO of home health aide company is arrested for 'bilking Medicare for $11 million to pay for Bentley, Cape Cod vacation home and lavish trips with her NYPD cop husband'
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