Limousine company owner pleads guilty to falsely collecting disability payments

A former Huntington man admitted Tuesday to collecting more than $200,000 in fraudulent disability benefits for seven years from the Social Security Administration while running a business and pursuing a bodybuilding campaign, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Tuesday.

Anthony Ragusa, who was arrested in May 2021, pleaded guilty to second-degree grand larceny.

Ragusa, 52, had told the New York Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance he was seriously injured in a fall while working as an electrician in 2013 and couldn’t work or perform daily activities. But while he collected disability benefits, he was the owner and president of a New Hyde Park limousine company and posted photos and videos of himself on social media lifting heavy weights, prosecutors said.

Ragusa pleaded guilty before Judge Anthony Senft Jr. in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead and will pay $200,000 in restitution to the Social Security Administration and be on probation for five years.

“Disability benefits are a vital necessity for the New Yorkers who rely on those resources to help them live their lives,” James said in a statement. “Anthony Ragusa swindled taxpayers by claiming the benefits for himself, but was caught in his fraudulent scheme when his wife posted bodybuilding photos of him online. His illegal and shameful actions are an insult to those who actually live with disabilities …"

In 2013, Ragusa applied for disability benefits, prosecutors said. As a result of his injuries, Ragusa said in his application, he had difficulty bending over to put on shoes, walk for more than 15 minutes and sit for more than 30 minutes.

According to documents from the state Department of Transportation and minutes from a town hearing in 2012, Ragusa was president and owner of WhiteStar Limousines in New Hyde Park. Ragusa in hearings and written reports, prosecutors said, maintained from January 2015 to 2020 he was eligible to receive benefits while running a business and lifting weights, which on his wife's Instagram account showed he was training to be a bodybuilder. Ragusa was seen working out at Bev Francis Powerhouse Gym in Syosset.

“For several years, Mr. Ragusa feigned his disability to fraudulently obtain over $200,000 in Social Security benefits, while managing his limousine business and a bodybuilding campaign. His admission holds him accountable for his deception and theft,” Inspector General for the Social Security Administration Gail S. Ennis said in a statement. “This guilty plea is a product of the collaborative efforts of our Cooperative Disability Investigations Program, in which we work jointly with state, local, and law enforcement agencies to combat fraud in our disability programs..”