He won her over — then helped bring her down.
Lori Zeno, the 66-year-old founder of the Queens Defenders legal aid organization, was sentenced Tuesday to federal prison after admitting she stole more than $100,000 from the nonprofit she built, money prosecutors said helped bankroll an extravagant lifestyle.
In Brooklyn federal court, Zeno pointed blame at her former employee and co-defendant, Rashad Ruhani, 56, saying her feelings for him clouded her judgment as he allegedly pressed her to divert funds for Bali getaways, high-end shopping and a penthouse in Astoria.
“The man that swore before God that he loved me actually didn’t, and the career I had spent over 40 years building ended in disgrace,” Zeno said through tears.
“I was so filled with shame and humiliation that I cannot even describe it,” she told the court.
The emotional appeal did not spare her from prison time. Judge Rachel Kovner ordered Zeno to serve three and a half years behind bars.
Federal prosecutors said Zeno brought Ruhani onto the Queens Defenders payroll in October 2023, while she was executive director of the group, which offered legal representation and community support to low-income residents in Queens.
Zeno and Ruhani later married in a religious ceremony, and prosecutors said the pair began carrying out the fraud scheme in the summer of 2024.
Together, the lovebirds embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from the legal group — blowing the cash on on foreign travel, fine dining and several other luxuries, prosecutors have said.
Those included a $10,000 vacation to Bali, a $1,700 getaway to a Santa Monica luxury resort and a $3,300 85-inch TV that was installed in their penthouse pad, according to court papers.
Zeno was leasing the $6,000-a-month apartment, and lived there with Ruhani, the documents show. He separately bilked the Queens Defenders of $39,000 to go toward their rent, claiming the penthouse was being used for “‘client defend’ and ‘foster parent Care,’” prosecutors wrote in the filings.
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Other fraudulent expenses included a $600 bill to pay for teeth whitening and charging the organization over $4,000 to buy a Louis Vuitton designer handbag, according to the indictment.
Letters filed by public defenders called for Zeno to be locked up, calling the disgraced ex-attorney a “power-driven bully who ruled with intimidation.”
In one example, an attorney accused Zeno of secretly recording her underlings with hidden cameras and audio devices to intimidate the employees.
“It is difficult—and goes against the very fiber of our professional identities—to submit this statement to the Court and ask for the incarceration of another,” one of the letters from a former Queens Defender staffer reads.
Zeno also gave cushy no-show jobs to Ruhani’s relatives, including hiring a woman he was apparently legally married to for a non-existent “health and wellness” program position with a salary of $60,000, the feds have said.
That incident eventually caused Queens Defenders to lose its city contract to provide criminal defense services to low-income New Yorkers, according to prosecutors.
The judge ripped Zeno during the sentencing hearing as being responsible for the organization losing its $35 million city contract.
“Ms. Zeno was really the person who had the most power in the organization to make this happen,” Kovner said, referring to hooking up Ruhani’s relatives with bogus jobs.
Ruhani was sentenced to about four years in prison during a separate proceeding shortly before Zeno’s hearing.
The ex-con — who previously spent 26 years behind bars on a robbery conviction — apologized for stealing the money and vowed to do better when he gets out of prison.
The judge ordered both defendants to pay $656,349 in restitution to the Queens Defenders. Zeno will additionally have to pay $187,000 in forfeiture and Ruhani will have fork over $103,000.
The pair pleaded guilty this year to wire fraud.
Zeno claimed behind tears that she was “not a stupid woman” but an “intelligent” one, telling the court she was haunted by “demons” that made her stray away from her morals and lose her promising career.
She was ordered to surrender for her prison term on September 20.
