pleaded guilty<\/a> this past spring.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nZeno\u2019s attorney, Anthony Ricco, also argued that she should receive a more lenient sentence because the amount of good she put into the world running a public defense organization for 30 years should not outweigh what he characterized as six to eight months of bad decisions. He said that she was being pushed by Ruhani to use the organization\u2019s funds to benefit him and a luxury lifestyle they shared.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the good things you did in life should be brought to attention [at sentencing],\u201d Ricco said, adding that her mental health issues and Ruhani\u2019s alleged manipulation shouldn\u2019t be seen as \u201cexcuses\u201d for what she did, but as an explanation. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to spend a lifetime committed to working to something and watch it [fall apart] in six months,\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, court filings made the day before her sentencing paint a different picture.\n<\/p>\n
Queens Defenders staffers who worked under Zeno and those now leading the destabilized organization filed a flurry of what are known as victim impact statements, pushing for a maximum sentence of 63 months.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those who worked with her say she was \u201ca power-driven bully,\u201d retaliated against those who sought advancement, left many who worked for her with PTSD and had treated the Queens Defenders as her \u201cpersonal piggy bank\u201d since at least 2007.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have watched [Zeno] conduct herself like Queens Law Associates, or Queens Defenders, was her personal piggy bank, to run as she saw fit, without any obligations to its funders, employees, or clients, committing fraud to satisfy her own personal selfish interests,\u201d wrote attorney Naira Grigoryan. \u201cShe overpaid herself, her two children, her former boyfriend Frank \u2026 and then her new husband Rashad and all of his family and associates.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grigoryan said the narrative that Zeno was forced by Ruhani to defraud and steal from the organization is untrue.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s painting herself as a philanthropist and asking the Court for leniency based on all the lives that she saved,\u201d Grigoryan wrote. \u201cBut ask any of the attorneys who worked in that office \u2026 She prided herself with breaking people down until they submitted to her or quit. That\u2019s why she got away with years of fraud, and this Prosecution barely scratches the surface of its extent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those who are working to keep the Queens Defenders running after Zeno\u2019s prosecution and theft also pushed the judge to give Zeno a hefty sentence, saying her actions toppling the critical legal services organization left thousands of Queens residents without the legal resources and community support they needed and resulted in an immediate aftermath of chaos as jobs were lost and clients had to be reassigned mid-trial.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLori Zeno did not just steal funds; she weaponized her position of trust to destroy an embedded and impactful provider within the Queens justice system,\u201d the Queens Defenders wrote in a court document filed Monday night. \u201cWhile our clients were facing the most terrifying moments of their lives\u2014facing criminal charges and fighting for their freedom\u2014the defendant was using the funds meant for their defense to finance a life of obscene luxury.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kovner\u2019s sentence is uncommon in that it is under the recommended minimum of 51 months. The judge said she took both the \u201cseverity of the crime\u201d and Zeno\u2019s mental health issues and family obligations into account when issuing her sentence, but didn\u2019t buy the argument that Ruhani manipulated the former nonprofit founder into stealing from her own organization \u2013 Zeno \u201chad the most power in the organization to make this happen,\u201d the judge said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe organization lost its contract with the city and \u2026 [Zeno\u2019s] actions created an enormous services gap,\u201d Kovner said, adding that Queens lost not only legal services but a food pantry, jobs and other community services, and now the organization is always \u201cassociated\u201d with scandal. <\/p>\n
However, the judge said she \u201cagree[ed] with Ms. Zeno that she has a lot to contribute,\u201d after the former attorney gets out of prison, referencing Zeno\u2019s speech in which she said she believed she still had a lot to give to the community.<\/p>\n
Zeno will have to surrender to the state\u2019s Bureau of Prisons on Sept. 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lori Zeno, who founded Queens Defenders in 1996, is accused by prosecutors of diverting funds primarily generated through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[2710,116592,9,24,63,122,55727,124,123],"class_list":["post-308096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-law","tag-lori-zeno","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-defenders","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308096","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=308096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}