Fraudster Masquerading as Doctor Tricked City into Giving $220K to Fake Homeless, AIDS Charity

Renauld Gregg and Cherynne Caro created a fraudulent non-profit organization to "help the needy" but ended up pocketing $220,000 in funding the city provided.

Both of them are from Staten Island, New York, and named themselves CEO and COO of Second Chance Resources Group Inc., an alleged “non-profit, charitable and educational multi-service organization dedicated to addressing the numerous issues of the community.”

They even created a website to make the scheme more believable in which they pointed out that their mission was to help the community through counseling, housing placement, addictions treatment, nursing services, and career training.

THE SCHEME

Apart from that, they made people believe that Second Chace provided “legal and social service initiatives that include HIV/AIDS outreach, education testing, and faith-based programming.”

The Department of Investigation (DOI) released a statement in which they detailed all the money Gregg and Caro stole from 2016 to 2018: $178,000 from the city’s Department of Health and Hygiene and about $41,660 from the Department of Youth and Development.

A TIP ABOUT THE FRAUD

What’s most shocking about it, though, is that DOI only started investigating the company because they received a tip that Second Chance did not attend an event that they claimed they did.

If that unnamed person hadn't shared that information, Gregg, who called himself “Dr. R.A. Gregg,” and Caro probably would have kept their fraudulent business going. Both of them also committed welfare fraud as they falsified an application for rental assistance from the city’s Human Resources Administration.

“Not only did the defendants bilk city taxpayers through this charged scam; but they expanded their alleged criminal conduct by concocting a need for emergency rental assistance and submitting a false application to the city,” said DOI commissioner Margaret Garnett.

Some people believe that the city should have investigated Gregg’s past before giving his organization all that money, especially because the man was convicted in 2009 of third-degree grand larceny for impersonating an attorney and stealing more than $150,000 from an acquaintance by keeping the money of the sale of a house.

ANOTHER HIGH-PROFILE FRAUD CASE

Apart from that, he stole more than $30,000 from his then-girlfriend and her parents doing the attorney-impersonation scheme, too. Unfortunately, Gregg and Caro are not the only people willing to commit fraud.

“Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Peter Thomas, the ex-husband of Cynthia Bailey, was arrested due to a warrant issued against him in Louisiana for writing counterfeit checks. He was reportedly in Miami because he’s opening a Miami Beach nightclub there.