A federal indictment against the leaders of a Brooklyn nonprofit, which takes in $200 million in public contracts, sheds light on a web of alleged corruption which could also bring down prominent city Democrats.
BHRAGS Home Care Inc. and nine related nonprofits are mired in fraud, including delinquent IRS filing notices and warnings from the city’s Department of Homeless Services.
However, they continue to receive millions from the city and lawmakers, having been paid more than $200 million by the Department of Homeless Services since 2022, according to public records.
BHRAGS Executive Director Roberto Samedy and its former board chairman, Jean Ronald Tirelus, have both been indicted.
Prosecutors allege levels of corruption within BHRAGS and accuse Samedy and Tirelus of siphoning money and taking kickbacks and bribes. They stand accused of raking in $1.3 million in illicit payments, wire fraud and embezzlement according to the indictment, obtained by The Post.
Joseph Nocella, US attorney for Brooklyn, said the defendants worked together “to loot public funds from an organization devoted to serving vulnerable New Yorkers.”
Both men have pleaded not guilty and lawyers for both claim they will “clear their name” at trial, according to ABC news. They face up to 20 years if convicted.
The Post has found there are 10 nonprofit companies related to BHRAGS, all with similar names. They were set up to provide services including homeless shelters, migrant shelters and to distribute money to health carers through the fraud-prone Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP). Only two are referred to in the indictment.
Most of them have not been filing their tax returns, some for more than a decade, leading to the majority being blacklisted by the IRS for failing to file.
BHRAGS Home Care Inc. took in $122 million in total government grants in 2024 — a jump of more than 54 percent from the previous year when their grants totaled just over $79 million — according to records seen by The Post, as the company pivoted out of CDPAP care, and into providing care for the migrants who were, at that time, flooding the city.
The Department of Homeless Services flagged concerns about the organization to the Department of Investigation in 2024 and placed the nonprofit on a Corrective Action Plan (CAP), according to Gothamist.
Despite that, one of the tax delinquent nonprofits — BHRAGS Alliance, Inc. — received more than $100,000 from the city’s Department of Education between 2023 and 2025, according to public records.
The main group, BHRAGS Home Care Corp., was also the recipient of hundreds of thousands in discretionary funds from Democratic City Council members, including Brooklyn Democrat Farah Louis. She doled out more $450,000 to them over the last five years.
Last month, federal agents raided the home of Louis and her sister, Debbie Louis — an aide to Gov. Hochul. The raid was related to the indictment of Samedy and Tirelus, per ABC, but neither sister has been arrested or charged with wrongdoing.
Also named in the federal search warrant for the sisters was Edu Hermelyn, the husband of state Assembly member Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who chairs the Brooklyn Democratic Party, the AP reported. Hermelyn also has not been arrested or charged.
Former City Council Speaker and Democratic lieutenant governor candidate Adrienne Adams gave BHRAGS Home Care Inc. $375,000 in discretionary funds through her speaker’s budget from 2022 to 2025, Council records show.
The taxpayer cash was earmarked for the group’s senior and youth after-school programs.
Samedy, who was Executive Director of BHRAGS Home Care Inc., one of the top people in the organization took in the highest salary of more than $376,000, filings show.
He also hired his children’s author wife, Sherline Montoute, as head of the group’s human resources department, paying her more than $160,000 in salary, according to the group’s 2024 tax filings, the latest publicly available. Their relationship should have been reported on the organization’s tax filings, per IRS rules.
The indictment also alleges that between February 2023 and January 2024, Samedy and Tirelus steered millions in cash to Fort NYC Security, a company controlled by retired NYPD Sergeant Edouardo St. Fort, and 1-800 Furniture, a company controlled by Queens businessman Miguel Jorge, The Post can reveal.
All four men are now accused of making or accepting bribes, according to the indictment.
In 2023 BHRAGS allegedly paid Fort NYC Security $1.3 million for “security services,” according to federal tax filings. The company was also known as 1-800 Security and secured more than $8 million from the city to provide security for homeless shelters, acting as a subcontractor of BHRAGS, according to the filings.
In a series of complicated transactions, St. Fort then allegedly paid tens in thousands in bribes to Tirelus and Samedy, per the indictment. St. Fort and Jorge have both pleaded not guilty.
“Tirelus and Samedy steered business to companies controlled by St. Fort and Jorge in exchange for bribes and kickbacks,” according to a Department of Justice press release.
Both Samedy and Tirelus donated to Farah Louis’s campaigns for City Council where she took over New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams’ seat in 2019.
Samedy did not return a request for comment. A receptionist at BHRAGS Home Care Inc. said: “He is absent until further notice.”
Tirelus could not be reached by The Post for comment. Louis’s City Council office did not return a request for comment Monday.
The nonprofit is housed at newly built headquarters on Nostrand Ave, which opened in 2025.
Speaking at the office in January, Samedy told The Post home care workers made $19.50 an hour and that they operate in all five boroughs, primarily dealing with Hispanic, Haitian, Russian and Chinese communities.
Samedy said BRAGHS no longer services CDPAP home health clients. However, it is one of the few companies allowed to act as a middleman agency between carers and insurance companies, who don’t have to work with Public Partnerships LLC, which is mandated for almost all other CDPAP clients in New York State.
“We’re like a doctor’s office,” Samedy said. “The doctor’s office has a contract with the insurance company to see clients. So, we have a contract with the insurance companies, which is the managed care organizations who provide services.”
The group handled millions of dollars from Medicaid, distributing over $68 million in salaries to workers in 2024, mostly within the CDPAP program.
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