A Federally Indicted Nonprofit Runs NYC Shelters — and Is Set to Collect $94,000,000 More.

On March 31, 2026, federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York unsealed an indictment charging the top two leaders of BHRAGS Home Care Corp. — a Brooklyn nonprofit that runs homeless shelters across New York City — with embezzling more than $1,300,000 from the taxpayer-funded organization and steering shelter work to vendors who paid them bribes and kickbacks.

The award itself is not an allegation. It is a documented fact: BHRAGS has collected nearly $200,000,000 in city Department of Homeless Services contracts since 2022 — and is still positioned to begin a new $94,000,000 shelter contract, its largest ever, this summer.

Asked about the deal, Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D-NYC)said the city would “definitely be looking into” its contracts with BHRAGS. The city’s own homeless-services agency had already flagged the nonprofit to investigators — two years earlier.

• $200,000,000 — nearly — total NYC Department of Homeless Services contracts awarded to BHRAGS since 2022 · Source: AP / NY1, Gothamist
• $94,000,000 — new single-adult Brooklyn shelter contract set to begin July 1, 2026, running through 2031 (renewable to 2035) — BHRAGS's largest ever · Source: Gothamist / city contract notice
• $1,300,000 — allegedly embezzled from the nonprofit, per the EDNY indictment unsealed March 31, 2026 · Source: U.S. Attorney, EDNY / AP

BHRAGS Home Care Corp. is a Brooklyn nonprofit that spent decades in home health care before expanding into the city’s booming shelter business. Since 2022, New York City’s Department of Homeless Services has routed roughly $130,000,000 to the organization through emergency shelter contracts — many of them opened during the migrant surge under then-Mayor Eric Adams. Most of those emergency deals are set to expire in the summer of 2026.

What is not expiring is the new one. In a competitive procurement, BHRAGS was awarded a $94,000,000 contract to operate a single-adult shelter in Brooklyn, scheduled to begin July 1, 2026 and run through June 2031, with a renewal option stretching to 2035. According to Gothamist, it is nearly double the next-largest shelter contract BHRAGS has ever held — and it survived the indictment of the nonprofit’s leadership.

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The indictment, unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn, names four defendants. Roberto Samedy, 50, the nonprofit’s executive director, and Jean Ronald Tirelus, 50, its former board chairman, were charged with wire fraud, embezzlement, and bribery-related offenses; each faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Two outside contractors — Edouardo St. Fort, a retired NYPD sergeant who runs Fort NYC Security, and Miguel Jorge— were charged with federal program bribery and related counts, each facing up to 10 years.

According to the indictment, between August 2020 and January 2024 Tirelus and Samedy duped the nonprofit’s board into wiring $800,000 to a shell company Tirelus controlled, falsely claiming a bank had approached BHRAGS about a joint-venture affordable-housing investment in distressed Brooklyn neighborhoods. Prosecutors say the pair also collected more than $200,000 in bribes and kickbacks in exchange for steering shelter work to St. Fort and Jorge. All four defendants are presumed innocent; Tirelus’s attorney said his client “categorically disputes the charges and looks forward to clearing his name at trial.”

The clearest line in the case runs through security guards. St. Fort’s firm, Fort NYC Security, has been awarded roughly $7,000,000 in shelter security contracts since 2023, and BHRAGS’s own tax filings show it paid Fort NYC Security about $1,950,000 for guard services. The address listed on the new shelter contract notice, Gothamist reported, leads to a Fort NYC Security storefront.

The relationship was litigated in plain sight before the indictment. In September 2024, Fort sued BHRAGS and DHS in Brooklyn Supreme Court over more than $607,000 in allegedly withheld payments; the case settled weeks later for the full amount. In April 2025, Fort sued the city again, claiming retaliation after a rejected security bid — a complaint a Brooklyn judge dismissed with prejudice in October 2025. Throughout, the public money kept flowing.

“When a vendor facing scrutiny is poised to receive its largest contract yet, officials should take a hard look.”

Ben Weinberg · Citizens Union · via Gothamist

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The criminal case has spilled toward elected office. Federal investigators are examining whether City Council Member Farah Louis (D-Brooklyn) and her sister Debbie Louis — an aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY)— accepted bribes tied to the appropriation of city funds to the nonprofit. A search warrant was executed on March 19, 2026. Neither sister has been charged, and both are presumed innocent; the governor’s office placed Debbie Louis on leave after learning of the investigation.

The web matters because it explains how a flagged vendor keeps winning. When the people who control appropriations and the people who win contracts overlap, the procurement paperwork can look clean while the incentives are anything but. That is precisely the pattern the indictment alleges — and the reason a competitive-bid label on the $94,000,000 deal has not reassured watchdogs.

The most damning detail is the timeline. The city’s Department of Homeless Services first flagged concerns about BHRAGS to the Department of Investigation in 2024 and placed the nonprofit on a corrective-action plan. The warning signs were inside city government two years before the indictment — and still the contract pipeline advanced toward a record $94,000,000 award.

After the charges, the Department of Social Services said it was “closely monitoring the situation and are in process of determining next steps in light of these serious allegations,” and that it was “grateful that the authorities swiftly moved on the investigation.” Good-government groups were less sanguine. John Kaehny of Reinvent Albany said he would be “very surprised if this contract actually is implemented in July.” Every city contract must clear registration through the Comptroller’s office — the last checkpoint before public money flows.

The BHRAGS case is not happening in a vacuum. New York City still houses more than 85,000 people a night in its shelter system, and the Mamdani administration recently inked a separate, nearly $1,900,000,000 three-year contract with the Hotel Association of New York City Foundation to keep homeless families in hotels — a deal Manhattan Institute senior fellow Nicole Gelinas called “basically a no-bid contract.” The dollars are enormous; the scrutiny on where they land has not kept pace.

That is the throughline. Nearly $200,000,000 in public money was meant to buy shelter, safety, and a path off the street for the city’s most vulnerable residents. The indictment alleges some of it instead bought a shell company, a stream of kickbacks, and a security contract routed to a connected vendor. The award is documented; the alleged theft is for a jury. Either way, the question for City Hall is the one watchdogs keep asking: why does a vendor flagged in 2024 still hold the city’s largest new shelter contract in 2026?

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