Oyster Bay man guilty of defrauding taxpayers, state AG says

Jurors in the Bronx on Friday found an Oyster Bay man guilty of defrauding taxpayers by setting up a no-show job and stealing up to $800,000 from a non-profit medical provider, state officials said.

John Cornachio, 63, who was convicted of second-degree grand larceny, is scheduled to be sentenced on March 2, said state Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman.

Cornachio is among several defendants who have been convicted in connection with a scam that bilked a Bronx firm called Narco Freedom. He faces up to 15 years in prison.

“The defendant crafted an elaborate scheme in order to hide a no-show job and steal from New York taxpayers — exploiting a Medicaid-funded program that was intended to help those suffering from substance abuse,” Schneiderman said in a statement.

Cornachio was being held without bail, but his attorney said he plans to fight the conviction.

“We do plan to take an appeal, and we feel we’ll be successful on it,” said the attorney, Brian Davis of Garden City.

Prosecutors said Cornachio and the former CEO of Narco Freedom conspired over five years to provide Cornachio with a no-show job through which he collected $500,000 in salary and benefits.

Perks included health insurance and a car allowance that Cornachio used to lease a Land Rover, prosecutors said.

Officials also said that Cornachio received another $300,000 through fabricated invoices for services submitted by a bogus company, B&C Management, which listed some of Cornachio’s minor children as substance-abuse counselors.

The conviction is the culmination of a series of legal actions starting in 2015, when Schneiderman’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit secured indictments against Cornachio, Narco Freedom Inc., its former chief executive officer, and 12 other people and corporations for defrauding the state’s Medicaid program, Schneiderman said.

All of those defendants have been convicted of crimes including corruption, grand larceny and filing false information with government offices, the attorney general’s office said.

Schneiderman’s office also sued Narco Freedom, which filed for bankruptcy in January 2016. A bankruptcy court approved a settlement that would distribute $118 million among its creditors, including New York State and the federal governments.