Dr. Michael Lucchesi, former chief of emergency medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, has been indicted on suspicion of embezzling more than $1.44 million by spending it on travel, personal trainers and a luxury dog daycare center, prosecutors allege.
Dr. Lucchesi, 66, leveraged the hospital and medical school’s business credit card to boost his six-figure salary, using taxpayer dollars to fund his comfortable lifestyle, according to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.
The alleged theft spanned more than six years, from Dec. 1, 2016, to Jan. 31, 2023, when an audit by the state Inspector General’s office uncovered it, the agency reported. Daily News.
Lucchesi also served at times as interim director of Downstate Hospital and the medical school. State payroll data shows he earned more than $260,000 in base salary in 2023, and from 2016 to 2019 his overall salary was more than $500,000.
The doctor allegedly used $176,000 to pamper five dogs that belonged to him and his girlfriend, law enforcement sources said. He also allegedly used the hospital’s credit card to pay for $348,000 in personal travel expenses, $109,000 in membership and personal training at the New York Sports Club, $52,000 in catering, $46,000 in tuition payments for his children, $115,000 in cash advances and various online orders for flowers, liquor, electronics and other purchases, prosecutors said.
“As a senior physician at this vital health care institution, this defendant was trusted with access to significant funds, which he allegedly exploited, stealing more than $1 million to pay for a lavish lifestyle,” Gonzalez said Tuesday. “The scope of the alleged thefts is shocking and my office is committed to holding anyone who defrauds taxpayers accountable.”
Lucchesi, a Staten Island resident, was arraigned Tuesday on a nine-count indictment, including grand larceny, falsifying business records and tax fraud. Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Donald Leo ordered him released without bail.
“New Yorkers deserve doctors who uphold their oath with the utmost integrity. The excessive spending of state money alleged here is an insult to hardworking taxpayers and the medical profession,” New York Inspector General Lucy Lang said Tuesday.
All charges are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
In a similar case, a woman pleaded guilty in March to a fraud scheme involving about $3.5 million over six years while she was Director of Finance and Administration at New York University (NYU).
In April, a fraud investigator for the New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) was charged on suspicion of stealing identity information during the COVID pandemic and then selling it to a scammer in New Jersey, federal authorities alleged.
Also this year, an MTA employee and a court official pleaded guilty to stealing $777,000 in COVID loans at the height of the coronavirus pandemic and were sentenced.
In another recent case of fraud with public funds in New York, a Hispanic woman who worked at the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) was accused of having stolen thousands of dollars that were intended for disadvantaged children, forging their signatures to feed her lavish lifestyle, Manhattan prosecutors said.
Days after employees of New York City’s homeless services agency (DHS), the Postal Service (USPS), the Public Housing Authority (NYCHA), the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and a former NYPD school security officer were among 18 people charged in Manhattan after a ghost gun investigation uncovered a multimillion-dollar identity theft scam targeting homeless New Yorkers during the pandemic.
Earlier this year, there were other scandals involving city employees in New York: on February 29, the FBI raided two homes in the Bronx owned by Winnie Greco, director of Asian affairs for Mayor Eric Adams.
Previously, the homes and offices of two chief inspectors for the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) were raided as part of an FBI investigation into alleged corruption.
Days earlier, 55 current New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) employees and 15 retirees were arrested on February 6. The list includes several Hispanics identified as “supers” in buildings in several boroughs. It was the largest number of federal bribery charges filed in a single day in the history of the Department of Justice (DOJ).
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