Saturday, March 6th, 2010

Nineteen people were busted late last year by Manhattan prosecutors for cheating Medicaid, leading to a series of sentencing for the despicable crime.  The latest sentencing comes for artist Steven Colucci, a painter who lives on West 109th Street and allegedly collected $16,112 in Medicaid benefits.  Colucci pled guilty to fraud in December for lying on forms that he only made $5,000 a year, while owning two houses on Dune Road in the Village of West Hampton Dunes that rented for as much as $65,000 a pop per summer and living in his rent-stabilized Upper West Side apartment.  The painter, 57, hobbled out of court on a cane while claiming he “had no medical insurance” and is 40 years old.  He called himself a mime, a dancer and a fine artist, and said he’s having Oxford take care of his current broken ankle, which (according to him) came from “[slipping] on the ice- on my way to heaven.”  After sentencing, Colucci now has a felony record for grand larceny and welfare fraud, but gets to stay out of jail as he serves five years probation.  While ripping off Medicaid by pretending to qualify (single adults qualify by making less than $10,830 a year and owning less than $13,800 in assets) takes a pretty big scumbag in our opinion, it sounds like Colucci may need more than probation and a fine… does anybody have the name of a good psychiatrist? [Source: New York Post]

Filed under: News, Upper West Side, Upper West Side Blog No Comments »
Tags: Artist, Fraud, Medicaid, Medicaid Fraud, Painter, Sentencing, Steven Colucci