Brooklyn CEO Blew Medical Loans in Atlantic City: DA

Maksim Grinberg, 43, and Steven Schuster, 59, owners of the three-pronged 9th Street Optical complex in Park Slope, have been accused by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office of filing $3.4 million in false loan requests over five years, claiming their doctors needed the money for new medical equipment.

The pair was awarded the $3.4 million by various financial institutions and medical equipment leasing companies, according to the DA’s Office.

Grinberg then blew the majority of the funds on “gambling trips to the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, on purchases at luxury good outlets, including Saks 5th Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman, on rent for a high-end condo in Battery Park City that he shares with his girlfriend and on lease payments on Mercedes and Audi automobiles,” the DA’s Office claimed in a Wednesday press release.

“This long-running scheme allegedly took advantage of banks and leasing companies,” Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson said in a statement, ”as well as of hard-working doctors whose identities were stolen so they could be listed as loan guarantors.”

Grinberg and Schuster are reportedly facing 25 years in prison. Between the two of them, their charges include:

• Fourth-degree conspiracy

• First-degree money laundering

• First-degree scheme to defraud

• First- second- and third-degree grand larceny

• First-degree identity theft and related counts
  

In addition, Grinberg’s estranged wife, 39-year-old Brooklyn resident Diana Gets, is charged with conspiracy, according to the DA’s Office.

A woman who answered the phone at 9th Street Optical on Wednesday said her bosses — the same ones named in the indictment — would be coming into the office Thursday morning, and could comment on the DA’s allegations against them at that time.