Former Queens Defender staffer pleads guilty to defrauding nonprofit

Rashad Ruhani admitted in federal court he used a Queens Defenders company credit card for personal and luxury purchases. Photo via Queens Defenders

By Noah Powelson

Rashad Ruhani pleaded guilty to wire fraud on Thursday, after admitting to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars that belonged to Queens Defenders, the legal nonprofit where he worked alongside Lori Zeno, his wife and the organization’s executive director.

It was a lengthy proceeding in the mostly empty courtroom in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, as Ruhani pleaded guilty to a wire fraud charge and admitted that he and Zeno stole from the Queens nonprofit and used its funds to pay for personal expenses, including a honeymoon vacation in Bali.

He now faces a minimum of 4 years and 9 months and a maximum of nearly six years in prison.

Ruhani’s guilty plea comes around two months after Zeno pleaded guilty in the case that decimated Queens Defenders, which had to shutter its criminal practice after the city ended a $32 million contract it had with the organization because of the pair’s wrongdoing.

Ruhani, who has been held in Metropolitan Detention Center since his arrest last June, was escorted into the courtroom wearing his brown prison uniform on Thursday. He briefly looked at the audience made up of reporters and government staff before quickly taking a seat. Ruhani fidgeted throughout the proceedings, and gave simple straightforward answers as the magistrate judge explained the charges and the potential consequences of the plea deal.

During the hearing, Ruhani was asked to describe the crime for which he was pleading guilty to, and admitted he used a Queens Defender company credit card to make a series of personal purchases from June 2024 through June 2025. Ruhani did not describe the exact purchases he made, but admitted he had no authority to make them.

“I knowingly and willingly used funds that were not mine,” Ruhani said.

As the hearing continued after his plea, Ruhani’s voice was audibly shaky at several points as he continued to give answers.

Ruhani made the plea agreement before Chief Magistrate Judge Vera Scanlon. The plea agreement and sentencing guidelines the government put forward will now be handed over to District Court Judge Rachel Kovner, who has been overseeing the case and will make the final sentencing determination.

As part of the plea deal, Ruhani now faces between roughly four to six years prison time. He was originally facing up to eight years in prison. He also faces a maximum fine of $250,000.

Ruhani only pleaded guilty for wire fraud, and not the other charges the government initially leveled against him including theft, money laundering, obstruction of justice and concealment of evidence.

Elena Fast, Ruhani’s attorney, declined to comment on Ruhani’s plea deal.

Ruhani is scheduled to be sentenced on July 14.

A third defendant in the case, music journalist and former editor-in-chief of The Source magazine Kimberly Osorio, has stuck with her not guilty plea. While she’s not accused of stealing from the organization, federal prosecutors claim she hid a phone for Ruhani just before his arrest at John F. Kennedy International Airport last year.

Neither Zeno nor Osorio were present in court on Thursday during Ruhani’s plea.

Prosecutors allege the couple stole at least $400,000 from the nonprofit, which earned most of its cash through taxpayer funded city contracts.

Ruhani joined Queens Defenders in 2023 shortly after he was released from a 26-year prison sentence he served for a 1996 robbery. It was his third violent felony conviction at the time, and he was under lifetime parole before his arrest last year.

Rashad Ruhani, left, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars alongside his wife, Lori Zeno, right. File photo via Queens Defenders/X

Ruhani and Zeno began a relationship sometime in 2024. The two were wed in a religious ceremony, but their marriage was not recognized by the state.

Ruhani and Zeno were originally arrested in June 2025 after prosecutors said the pair used a company credit card to fund their $10,000 honeymoon in Bali, a number of meals at high-end restaurants, designer shopping sprees, and a $3,000 TV for their penthouse apartment in Astoria. The couple also allegedly claimed that their $6,000-a-month Astoria apartment was being used for work and submitted monthly rent invoices to Queens Defenders.

Prosecutors said Zeno and Ruhani also worked together to hire several people to work high pay no-show jobs, including Ruhani’s legal wife, Ureka Washington. Washington also had a role in the couple’s theft, prosecutors allege, signing off on fraudulent invoices to Queens Defenders.

During her February plea hearing, Zeno suggested that Ruhani was responsible for most of the money stolen. Zeno admitted she stole around $150,000 from the nonprofit, but she did not account for the remaining $250,000.

Zeno’s attorney, Steven Legon, indicated Zeno would have more to say during her sentencing.

“Stay tuned,” he said after Zeno pleaded guilty in February.

Also in the mix is Osorio, who federal prosecutors claim was traveling with Ruhani from Los Angeles to New York the day Ruhani was arrested on June 10, 2025. Ruhani allegedly learned that FBI agents were executing search warrants in the case while he and Osorio were in the air, and gave his phone to Osorio to hide.

Though Ruhani and Osorio were allegedly seen entering the plane in Los Angeles together, the two exited separately when they landed in New York. Osorio got off the plane after Ruhani – who was arrested by waiting federal agents – and she herself was stopped by federal agents as she was trying to leave the airport.

“I have reason to believe that you've been traveling with somebody else from the plane that you just came off of from LAX, right?” an agent said to Osorio, according to a transcript of a video recording of the interaction Osorio took. “I want to warn you, lying to a federal agent is a crime.”

Osorio refused to speak to the agents unless she had a lawyer present. Federal agents asked her several more questions, including if she was currently holding onto Ruhani’s phone, which she denied.

It is not clear how Ruhani and Osorio knew each other.

Osorio was charged with making false statements to federal law enforcement and obstruction of justice in October 2025.

Her attorney, Adam Bolotin, recently filed a motion to suppress evidence prosecutors plan to use in Osorio’s case. Bolotin argued the evidence was obtained illegally, and that Osorio’s interrogation and a later search of her home were done without probable cause.

The motion was filed on April 8, the same day Ruhani told the court that he plans to switch his plea. Federal prosecutors have until April 23 to reply to the motion.

Zeno is scheduled to be sentenced to between four and five years in prison on June 29.