By Jacob Kaye
Kimberly Osorio, the media personality who allegedly hid a cell phone for a Queens man accused of helping to steal $400,000 from legal nonprofit Queens Defenders, asked a judge to toss much of the evidence federal prosecutors plan to bring against her at trial.
Osorio’s attorney, Adam Bolotin, filed a motion to suppress a bulk of the evidence prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York are expected to use to attempt to prove that Osorio hid evidence for Rashad Ruhani, a former Queens Defenders employee who, alongside former executive director Lori Zeno, was charged last year for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the organization.
Bolotin claimed that FBI agents who interrogated Osorio at John F. Kennedy Airport on June 10, 2025, and later the next day, did so illegally.
The attorney claimed that the interrogations and a later search of Osorio’s home were conducted without probable cause. The FBI agents also failed to read Osorio her Miranda rights, the motion alleges.
“If the government is going to charge anyone in this country with a crime, then the law enforcement agents better follow the Constitution,” Bolotin told the Eagle.
Osorio’s motion was filed on April 8, the same day Ruhani told the court that he plans to switch his plea on charges of wire fraud, theft, money laundering, obstruction of justice and concealment of evidence from not guilty to guilty.
Zeno pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in the case in February after initially pleading not guilty.
Zeno and Ruhani, who were married in a religious ceremony not recognized by the state, are accused of using a Queens Defenders credit card and credit card points to make a number of personal purchases, including to pay for a honeymoon vacation in Bali. The pair also allegedly invoiced the organization every month for their $6,000 luxury apartment in Astoria, which they falsely claimed was being used to help the organization’s clients.
The allegations nearly decimated Queens Defenders, which mostly runs on taxpayer-funded city contracts. After Zeno and Ruhani were arrested, the city ended a more than $30 million criminal defense contract it had with the organization, forcing the organization to shutter its criminal defense practice.
Osorio, who is not accused of participating in the scheme to steal money from the legal services nonprofit, was charged with making false statements to federal law enforcement and obstruction of justice in October 2025, four months after Zeno and Ruhani were first charged.
It’s unclear how Osorio and Ruhani knew each other.
Osorio, a Bronx native, was the first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of “The Source,” a prominent hip-hop magazine. She later went on to serve as the editor-at-large of BET.com.
In recent years, she’s appeared as a pundit, opining and reporting on hip-hop culture. At the time of her arrest, she was reportedly preparing to release a book on high-profile criminal trials and civil cases involving hip-hop figures.