There’s more trouble brewing for an embattled Queens public defender office, as a lawyer there was busted for passing drugs to an incarcerated client just days after group’s founder was charged with fraud.
One of the staff lawyers at Queens Defenders was arrested for allegedly attempting to sneak more than 130 pages of paper laced with THC to an inmate during a scheduled attorney visit at Rikers Island.
Bernardo Caceres was charged with promoting prison contraband, a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison in New York.
During a visit to inmate Luis DeJesus Wednesday afternoon – who’s jailed on charges of second-degree burglary – a K-9 dog smelled something fishy inside a yellow envelope Caceres had brought with him.
When a corrections offer opened it, he discovered multiple discolored legal sized papers, which were seized by the Correctional Intelligence Bureau and tested positive for THC.
Caceres smiled as he was handcuffed by correctional staff and arrested, in what’s the latest brush with the law for the troubled public defender’s clinic.
Its founder, Lori Zeno and another lawyer at the group, Rashad Ruhani, who is her husband, were charged in federal court Wednesday.
The couple stole at least $60,000 from the organization and used it to pay for a pricey penthouse, $2,000 restaurant meals and even a dream getaway to Bali, a bombshell indictment claims.
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