A New York woman has been sentenced to 33 months in prison for embezzlement while executive director of a nonprofit agency that assists developmentally disabled youth.
Wafa Abboud, 55, of Merrick, N.Y., has also been ordered to forfeit $836,000 and pay $1,415,000 in restitution to Human First Inc., the nonprofit agency she led for more than five years, a Jan. 11 news release reported. Abboud and others used several schemes to steal more than $1 million from Human First.
“Stealing taxpayer money earmarked for developmentally disabled youth to pay for vacations, cosmetic surgery and luxurious vacations is shameful,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace said in the release. “Today, the defendant has been held accountable for betraying the most vulnerable among us whom she was entrusted to serve and treating the non-profit organization bank accounts as though they were her own.”
Abboud was executive director of Human First from January 2011 to May 27, 2016. The non-profit corporation served people who had autism and other developmental disabilities, the release said.
While Abboud was executive director, Human First received millions of dollars annually from the New York State Office for People with Developmental Disabilities, which is funded in part by Medicaid.
“The money was disbursed to Human First to support its mission of providing residential, rehabilitative and other services to developmentally disabled youth,” the release said.
Abboud and Marcelle Bailey had an agreement in which Abboud had Human First pay Bailey’s company MPB Management Services LLC approximately $16,000 per month in so-called “consulting” fees, the release reported.
“Bailey deposited approximately half of each monthly disbursement into bank accounts that were controlled by Abboud, who used the money to fund a lavish lifestyle, including expensive international vacations, visits to luxury spas and high-end beauty salons and restaurants and elective cosmetic surgeries,” the release said. “Abboud also withdrew approximately $120,000 from the accounts in cash and wired tens of thousands of dollars in the account overseas. In total, Abboud stole approximately $420,000 between May 2011 and February 2016 through the MPB embezzlement scheme.”
Abboud also conspired with Rami Taha in stealing more than $400,000, according to the release.
Senior U.S. District Judge Edward Korman sentenced Abboud Jan. 11 in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., the release reported. Abboud was convicted in a jury trial in July 2019 of “theft from programs receiving federal funds, bank fraud and conspiracies to commit those crimes.”
