Eric Adams Power Broker Says He's the Victim in Multi-Million Insurance Scam

In the months before his pal Eric Adams became mayor and made him chief of staff, Brooklyn attorney Frank Carone was hustling to build up a company he'd created to provide cash advances to doctors awaiting potentially lucrative insurance payouts in no-fault car accident cases.

Carone's firm relied on a team of recruiters to find doctors who might sign up. Those on board included his longtime friend, Zhan "Johnny" Petrosyants, and two of Petrosyants' associates, Vladislav "Vlad" Stoyanovsky and Dmitriy "Dimi" Khavko.

By the end of last week, all three of those team members had been indicted on charges of running a massive no-fault insurance fraud ring that relied on a finance company that Carone's lawyers on Friday confirmed is Carone's firm, Finance Vision Capital Group II.

Carone, a top city power broker who has not been charged with wrongdoing, declined repeated requests by THE CITY to comment on the three accused fraudsters, but in the past he has said that once he went into City Hall in 2022 he had no involvement with Finance Vision Capital.

"As Frank and Finance Vision have long maintained, they are victims of this fraud, which cost them millions of dollars," Carone's lawyers, Russell Capone and Andrew Goldstein, said in a statement. "Indeed, as the indictment makes clear, funds from Financial Vision often did not reach the doctors they were intended for but were instead stolen."

The indictments of Petrosyants, Stoyanovsky and Khakov were the latest charges filed against members of the former mayor's professional and social circles.

The toll from federal and state prosecutors includes Adams' former chief advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin; Jesse Hamilton, a longtime associate; and former Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich. Adams' schools chancellor, a deputy mayor and a police commissioner all resigned after their phones were seized by federal investigators.

In September 2024, Adams himself was charged with corruption, only for the Trump administration to later dismiss the indictment.

While Carone's lawyers portrayed the powerful lobbyist as a victim in the alleged no-fault scheme, insurance giant GEICO last year sued Finance Vision in Brooklyn federal court, accusing the firm of "aiding and abetting" a massive fraud ring that submitted tens of thousands of bogus insurance claims for car accident victims for health care services that never occurred or had zero medical benefit. GEICO named Stoyanovsky and Khavko as defendants and sought to question Petrosyants.

The accusations in the civil lawsuit mirror the allegations outlined in the indictment unsealed last week against Petrosyants, Stoyanovsky and Khavko by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton.

Prosecutors allege that the trio set up a system where they used the signatures of licensed doctors to generate tens of millions of dollars worth of bogus claims. They relied on a finance firm that prosecutors didn't identify to provide doctors and clinics with cash advances.

The firm would then collect the full amount of the payouts from insurers, plus fees. Some of the cash advances were paid to shell corporations that were clearly not medical clinics, including one called Blue Tech Supplies, the indictment alleged.

That finance firm was Finance Vision Capital Group.

In the civil suit, GEICO's lawyers described what they said was Finance Vision's "knowing participation in the fraudulent scheme." They noted the company had no direct contact with one doctor whose signature was used to justify medical claims submitted to GEICO and other insurers. Instead, the suit alleges, Finance Vision would award cash advances to shell companies and fake clinics set up by the ring that were not licensed to perform health care.

Abrams Fensterman, the politically connected law firm where Carone was a partner, handled all of Finance Vision's collections from insurers, documents filed in another lawsuit show.

"Finance Vision knew that the funding arrangements between FV and the (doctor's clinic) were a sham and were solely a means to create the appearance that there were legitimate financing or factoring agreements associated with the accounts," GEICO alleged. "The true purpose was to pay the (ring leaders) up front."

Finance Vision "submitted fraudulent bills generated with fabricated documents to GEICO and other insurers falsely claiming that the fraudulent services were (allegedly) performed by the doctor and his clinic," GEICO alleged.

Emails filed in the GEICO case and another lawsuit reveal multiple direct contacts between Carone or his firm and all three defendants in the federal indictment: Petrosayyants, Stoyanovsky and Khavko.

In one March 2021 email, Finance Vision advises Stoyanovsky and Khavko "that funding was issued for among others three batches of claims associated with" a doctor's clinic. Other emails between Carone and the three defendants discuss obtaining more payouts from insurers and recruiting doctors to sign up for Finance Vision's cash advances.

Another March 2021 email to Petrosyants indicates Carone was aware of potentially inflated claims. He notes that a medical provider appeared to be seeking insurance payouts for procedures "that are not justified by their medical records."

As the alleged fraud ring began to attract the notice of GEICO and other insurers, Carone's firm filed a lawsuit in Nassau County that portrayed Finance Vision as a victim.

The lawsuit claimed Daniel Kandhorov, another close friend of former Mayor Adams, had connected the firm to Petrosyants and other fraudsters and that the firm was unaware of their fraudulent activity. It mentioned that Carone's pal, Petrosyants, had pleaded guilty to fraud charges related to a no-fault insurance scheme in 2014.

The suit also named as a defendant Peka Group, a company once owned by Petrosyants and his twin brother, Robert, to recover money the firm lost in the course of the alleged scheme. That case is pending.

The GEICO lawsuit was settled last fall by all parties, including Carone's firm, for an undisclosed amount.. Reached Thursday by THE CITY, the insurer's lawyer, Barry Levy of Rivkin Radler, declined to comment.

Khavko's attorney, Roger Stavis, and Stoyanovsky's lawyer, James Kousouros, declined to comment. As of Friday, the court had no record of who is representing Petrosyants.

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