{"id":187008,"date":"2026-04-06T11:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T11:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/187008\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T11:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T11:37:11","slug":"eric-adams-power-broker-says-hes-the-victim-in-multi-million-insurance-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/187008\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Adams Power Broker Says He\u2019s the Victim in Multi-Million Insurance Scam"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the months before his pal Eric Adams<\/a> became mayor and made him chief of staff, Brooklyn attorney Frank Carone<\/a> was hustling to build up a company he\u2019d created to provide cash advances to doctors awaiting potentially lucrative insurance payouts in no-fault car accident cases.<\/p>\n

Carone\u2019s firm relied on a team of recruiters to find doctors who might sign up. Those on board included his longtime friend,\u00a0 Zhan \u201cJohnny\u201d Petrosyants<\/a>, and two of Petrosyants\u2019 associates, Vladislav \u201cVlad\u201d Stoyanovsky and Dmitriy \u201cDimi\u201d Khavko.<\/p>\n

By the end of last week, all three of those team members had been indicted on charges of running a massive no-fault insurance fraud ring that relied on a finance company that Carone\u2019s lawyers on Friday confirmed is Carone\u2019s firm, Finance Vision Capital Group II.<\/p>\n

Carone, a top city power broker who has not been charged with wrongdoing, declined repeated requests by THE CITY to comment on the three accused fraudsters, but in the past he has said that once he went into City Hall in 2022 he had no involvement with Finance Vision Capital.<\/p>\n

\"\"Federal prosecutors charged Zhan \u201cJohnny\u201d Petrosyants, third from right, in a multi-million-dollar insurance scam. Petrosyants is a longtime friend of former Mayor Eric Adams. Credit: Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce\/Twitter<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Frank and Finance Vision have long maintained, they are victims of this fraud, which cost them millions of dollars,\u201d Carone\u2019s lawyers, Russell Capone and Andrew Goldstein, said in a statement. \u201cIndeed, as the indictment makes clear, funds from Financial Vision often did not reach the doctors they were intended for but were instead stolen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The indictments of Petrosyants, Stoyanovsky and Khakov were the latest charges filed against members of the former mayor\u2019s professional and social circles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The toll from federal and state prosecutors includes Adams\u2019 former chief advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin<\/a>; Jesse Hamilton<\/a>, a longtime associate; and former Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich<\/a>. Adams\u2019 schools chancellor, a deputy mayor and a police commissioner all resigned after their phones were seized by federal investigators<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In September 2024, Adams himself was charged with corruption<\/a>, only for the Trump administration to later dismiss the indictment.<\/p>\n

While Carone\u2019s lawyers portrayed the powerful lobbyist<\/a> as a victim in the alleged no-fault scheme, insurance giant GEICO last year sued Finance Vision in Brooklyn federal court, accusing the firm of \u201caiding and abetting\u201d a massive fraud ring that submitted tens of thousands of bogus insurance claims for car accident victims for health care services that never occurred or had zero medical benefit. GEICO named Stoyanovsky and Khavko as defendants and sought to question Petrosyants.<\/p>\n

The accusations in the civil lawsuit mirror the allegations outlined in the indictment unsealed last week against Petrosyants, Stoyanovsky and Khavko by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors allege that the trio set up a system where they used the signatures of licensed doctors to generate tens of millions of dollars worth of bogus claims<\/a>. They relied on a finance firm that prosecutors didn\u2019t identify to provide doctors and clinics with cash advances.<\/p>\n

The firm would then collect the full amount of the payouts from insurers, plus fees. Some of the cash advances were paid to shell corporations that were clearly not medical clinics, including one called Blue Tech Supplies, the indictment alleged.<\/p>\n

That finance firm was Finance Vision Capital Group.<\/p>\n

\"\"Eric Adams chief of staff, Frank Carone, center, accepts an award from Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello, left, and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio at an event supporting Catholic schools, Oct. 22, 2021. Credit: Screengrab\/Futures in Education\/YouTube<\/p>\n

In the civil suit, GEICO\u2019s lawyers described what they said was Finance Vision\u2019s\u00a0 \u201cknowing participation in the fraudulent scheme.\u201d They noted the company had no direct contact with one doctor whose signature was used to justify medical claims submitted to GEICO and other insurers. Instead, the suit alleges, Finance Vision would award cash advances to shell companies and fake clinics set up by the ring that were not licensed to perform health care.<\/p>\n

Abrams Fensterman, the politically connected law firm where Carone was a partner, handled all of Finance Vision\u2019s collections from insurers, documents filed in another lawsuit show.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinance Vision knew that the funding arrangements between FV and the (doctor\u2019s clinic) were a sham and were solely a means to create the appearance that there were legitimate financing or factoring agreements associated with the accounts,\u201d GEICO alleged. \u201cThe true purpose was to pay the (ring leaders) up front.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finance Vision \u201csubmitted fraudulent bills generated with fabricated documents to GEICO and other insurers falsely claiming that the fraudulent services were (allegedly) performed by the doctor and his clinic,\u201d GEICO alleged.<\/p>\n

Emails filed in the GEICO case and another lawsuit reveal multiple direct contacts between Carone or his firm and all three defendants in the federal indictment: Petrosayyants, Stoyanovsky and Khavko.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"JohnnyZhan \u201cJohnny\u201d Petrosyants attends a photo exhibit with Mayor Eric Adams, Jan. 25, 2023. Credit: Katie Honan\/THE CITY<\/p>\n

In one March 2021 email, Finance Vision advises Stoyanovsky and Khavko \u201cthat funding was issued for among others three batches of claims associated with\u201d a doctor\u2019s clinic. Other emails between Carone and the three defendants discuss obtaining more payouts from insurers and recruiting doctors to sign up for Finance Vision\u2019s cash advances.<\/p>\n

Another March 2021 email to Petrosyants indicates Carone was aware of potentially inflated claims. He notes that a medical provider appeared to be seeking insurance payouts for procedures \u201cthat are not justified by their medical records.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the alleged fraud ring began to attract the notice of GEICO and other insurers, Carone\u2019s firm filed a lawsuit in Nassau County that portrayed Finance Vision as a victim.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit claimed Daniel Kandhorov<\/a>, another close friend of former Mayor Adams, had connected the firm to Petrosyants and other fraudsters and that the firm was unaware of their fraudulent activity. It mentioned that Carone\u2019s pal, Petrosyants, had pleaded guilty to fraud charges related to a no-fault insurance scheme in 2014.<\/p>\n

The suit also named as a defendant Peka Group<\/a>, a company once owned by Petrosyants and his twin brother, Robert, to recover money the firm lost in the course of the alleged scheme. That case is pending.<\/p>\n

The GEICO lawsuit was settled last fall by all parties, including Carone\u2019s firm, for an undisclosed amount.. Reached Thursday by THE CITY, the insurer\u2019s lawyer, Barry Levy of Rivkin Radler, declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Khavko\u2019s attorney, Roger Stavis, and Stoyanovsky\u2019s lawyer, James Kousouros, declined to comment. As of Friday, the court had no record of who is representing Petrosyants.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the months before his pal Eric Adams became mayor and made him chief of staff, Brooklyn attorney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[81,9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-187008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-eric-adams","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-ny","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-nyc-headlines","13":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}