MINEOLA, N.Y. — An attorney who claimed his own experience as an adopted child motivated him to help people seeking to start families is suspected of running a Ponzi-like scheme that ripped off couples from New York to Texas, promising children who didn’t exist.
Kevin Cohen, 41, pleaded not guilty Friday to grand larceny and other charges after one Long Island couple told prosecutors they paid him $60,000 in fees for a promised baby that he never delivered. Since then, 15 other couples from New York, Georgia, Ohio and Texas have contacted a prosecutor in New York’s Nassau County, telling similar stories.
Cohen’s attorney, Matin Emouna, said the disputes are civil matters and not something requiring criminal prosecution. Cohen once ran an adoption agency called the Adoption Annex and has had many satisfied clients, he said.
Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice has likened the case to a Ponzi scheme because Cohen partially refunded the fees of some disappointed couples with proceeds he had collected from other people to whom he had promised babies. In a traditional Ponzi scheme, early investors are paid “proceeds” from a scam investment with money raked in from later investors.
“This was so much more than just a fraud scheme,” Rice said. “The emotional turmoil he put these couples through is unimaginable.”
