SUNY Downstate Hospital Official Sentenced for Stealing $1.4 Million
Dr. Michael Lucchesi, 67, stole the money over seven years from Downstate, which has been plagued by financial trouble for years, by using a work credit card for cash advances and lavish personal spending. About $348,000 of the purloined money went to personal travel, and $176,000 was spent on pet care, including $120,000 at the Greenleaf Pet Resort & Hotel in New Jersey, prosecutors said. Dr. Lucchesi used $109,000 of the hospital's money for personal training and gym memberships at New York Sports Club.
Prosecutors said he spent $92,000 on tickets to sporting events, concerts and Broadway shows and $52,000 on catering. And $46,000 covered tuition payments for his children. Undisclosed amounts were spent on flowers, liquor, electronics and online shopping sprees.
Dr. Lucchesi pleaded guilty to one count of larceny in June and was sentenced by Danny Chun, a justice of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, to three years in prison, and will be eligible for parole after one year.
As part of his sentencing, Dr. Lucchesi has agreed to pay $720,000 in restitution to the state and the clinical practice at University Hospital at Downstate, a 342-bed institution that serves patients in a working-class but quickly gentrifying corner of Flatbush, Brooklyn.
'SUNY Downstate does vital, lifesaving work, and these stolen funds could have been used to support patient care and medical services,' the Brooklyn district attorney, Eric Gonzalez, said in a statement. 'Instead, they were diverted for personal expenses over a period of years. With today's sentence, the defendant is being held accountable for this serious breach of trust.'
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