Former Queens Defenders executive director sentenced to 43 months in prison
Lori Zeno, center, then the executive director of the Queens Defenders, addresses the media outside a Queens, New York City, courthouse June 25, 2020, in New York. (Photo by Kevin Hagen/The Associated Press)
The co-founder and former executive director of the Queens Defenders, a New York City legal services group for indigent defendants, was sentenced to 43 months in prison Tuesday after she admitted that she and her ex-husband stole from the organization.
Three decades ago, Lori Zeno, 66, helped found the Queens Defenders. While working as its executive director between 2018 and January 2025, she stole hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for vacations, expensive dinners and a penthouse apartment, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors also accused Zeno of using her position to secure no-show jobs for the friends and relatives of her ex-husband, Rashad Ruhani. She and Ruhani were both charged with three counts of wire fraud and one count each of wire fraud conspiracy, theft of funds and money laundering conspiracy.
“I have disappointed myself, my family, my friends, people who trusted me and even looked up to me,” Zeno said in court, according to a story by Courthouse News Service.
Zeno pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Marutollo of the Eastern District of New York in February. Ruhani also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 57 months in prison.
Zeno and Ruhani were also ordered to pay more than $650,000 in restitution to the Queens Defenders.
Last year, the Brooklyn Defender Services absorbed much of the Queens Defenders’ work.
The Queens Defenders said in a sentencing filing it lost $35 million in contracts to represent indigent clients, along with state and city contracts that didn’t transfer over, “creating enormous service gaps for vulnerable New Yorkers,” according to Courthouse News Service.
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