Doctor charged in food stamp, disability scheme, state says

A Westbury plastic surgeon who lost his license in 2007 but last year was indicted in a four-year scheme to illegally operate on more than 60 people was charged with insurance and welfare fraud on Friday, prosecutors said.

Brad Jacobs, 56, claiming he was so poor that his elderly parents supported him, obtained nearly $14,000 in food stamps, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said in a statement. Yet the defendant was collecting $1.3 million in disability payments, he said.

Last year, Schneiderman charged that Jacobs and a licensed Queens doctor, Nicholas Sewell, were seeing patients and performing surgeries in Manhattan, “falsely representing that Jacobs was authorized to practice medicine,” Schneiderman said. One person was disfigured for life, he said.

In a 22-count indictment, the duo were charged with first- and second-degree assault, grand larceny, unauthorized practice of a profession, scheme to defraud and money laundering, prosecutors said.

In a new 21-count indictment Friday, Jacobs was charged with more felonies, including grand larceny, misuse of food stamps, offering a false instrument, perjury, and scheme to defraud, Schneiderman said.

“Jeopardizing New Yorkers’ lives by practicing without a medical license is shameful enough,” Schneiderman said. “It’s even more heinous to use that illegal medical practice to commit fraud and steal from taxpayers — in particular from the most vulnerable among us.”

Prosecutors did not immediately identify lawyers representing the two men.

The new charges Jacobs face include defrauding the Northwestern Mutual Insurance Company.

It sold Jacobs a disability policy before he relinquished his medical license — after admitting he could not defend himself against 29 misconduct charges, prosecutors said.

Northwestern paid Jacobs a $750,000 lump sum in 2013, and annual payments, totaling $360,000, from 2014 to 2017, prosecutors said.

Every year, Jacobs certified to the insurer that he was unemployed and not working as a physician, prosecutors said.

The defendant also wrongly obtained food stamps from 2013 to 2017, filing sworn statements saying he both needed them and was entitled to them, prosecutors said.

Jacobs concealed from Nassau County’s Department of Social Services that he had resumed practicing medicine with Sewell, they said.

He also hid almost $100,000 of income from a startup skin care firm, prosecutors said.

And he kept secret his disability payments, some of which he spent on entertainment, leisure — and food, including $10,000 at Whole Foods and Waldbaums and $3,900 at Bagel Boss, they said.

Jacobs, who was arraigned Friday in Nassau County Supreme Court, remains in custody on $4 million bond or $2 million cash bail, which was previously set on the New York County indictment, prosecutors said.

Similarly, Sewell remains in custody on the New York County indictment, with bail of $500,000 bond or cash, they said.