Riverhead man pleads guilty in $369,000 pandemic grant fraud scheme
Lasha Bukia, 34, pleaded guilty to second-degree grand larceny in Kings County Supreme Court for using falsified tax returns to fraudulently obtain $369,000 in Empire State Development pandemic relief grants on behalf of nine Brooklyn residents.
Riverhead man pleads guilty in $369,000 pandemic grant fraud scheme
Lasha Bukia, 34, pleaded guilty to second-degree grand larceny in Kings County Supreme Court for using falsified tax returns to fraudulently obtain $369,000 in Empire State Development pandemic relief grants on behalf of nine Brooklyn residents.
Lasha Bukia, a 34-year-old Riverhead man, has pleaded guilty to second-degree grand larceny in Kings County Supreme Court over a scheme that used falsified tax returns to pull $369,000 in New York pandemic relief grants for nine Brooklyn residents, RiverheadLOCAL reported.
The plea covered the other 24 counts in Bukia’s indictment, according to a court eTrack notice cited by RiverheadLOCAL. His next court appearance is scheduled for Wednesday, December 9, before Justice Danny Chun, with sentencing and a motion on the calendar.
According to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, Bukia applied for and obtained grants from Empire State Development, the state’s economic development agency, on behalf of nine Brooklyn residents between November 2021 and October 2022. The recipients included Uber and Lyft drivers and home health aides.
Bukia directed those grant recipients to hand over their driver’s licenses, their 2019 and 2020 tax returns and a utility bill, prosecutors said. He then altered the returns to inflate…
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