DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — DR. MICHAEL LUCCHESI, 67, former chief medical officer and chair of emergency medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, has admitted stealing approximately $1.44 million by using a business credit card for personal purchases such as pet care, travel, Broadway shows and cash advances.
The plea was announced Friday by Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, together with state Inspector General Lucy Lang and state Department of Taxation and Finance Acting Commissioner Amanda Hiller, who said Lucchesi pleaded guilty in exchange for a promised sentence of one to three years in prison.
Lucchesi was chief medical officer at Long Island College Hospital (LICH) during then-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s controversial sale of the historic hospital to a developer in 2014. As part of Downstate’s campaign to close LICH, Lucchesi was accused of diverting ambulances from the Cobble Hill institution, transferring patients out under cover of darkness, and harassing LICH doctors and nurses, according to testimony in court before state Supreme Court Justice Johnny Lee Baynes.
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