Doctor pleads guilty to tax crimes
Ehab Kodsi underreported income from 2015 to 2018
A Queensbury doctor recently sued by a nurse practitioner for alleged unwanted sexual advances and assault pleaded guilty Wednesday to unrelated federal tax crimes.
Ehab Kodsi, 56, of Colonie, who runs Total Care & Rehabilitation Medicine, admitted before Senior U.S. District Judge Lawrence Kahn to filing a false tax return and deliberately underreporting his income by $822,069 between 2015 and 2018, according to federal prosecutors in Albany.
Kodsi, who has been licensed to practice medicine since 2006, failed to pay $245,212 in taxes, prosecutors said.
In addition, Kodsi did not report income from third parties reimbursing services provided by Total Care, deducted personal expenses as business expenses, deducted the same business expense multiple times and overstated business expenses related to his and his family’s use of vehicles, prosecutors said.
Kodsi’s criminal case, prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Barnett, followed an investigation by staff with the New York field office of the Internal Revenue Service.
Last month, a 35-year-old nurse practitioner filed a lawsuit against Kodsi and Total Care alleging unlawful discrimination, a hostile work environment, sexual assault, sexual harassment, retali
ation and battery based upon the plaintiff ’s sex and gender in violation of federal civil rights law.
The woman alleged that in October 2021, Kodsi manipulated her into staying in the same hotel room as him when they attended a seminar held by the New York State Pain Society at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. She said the doctor used his display of a medical technique “as a pretext to sexually assault me,” according to a news release issued by the firm of Conway, Donovan & Manley in Albany.
The woman contends she initially was offered a pay raise and an Apple Watch in exchange for dropping the complaint and was ultimately fired in retaliation, according to court papers filed by her Albany attorney, Michael Conway.
Kevin Luibrand, who represents Kodsi in the civil case, said Kodsi denies the allegations.
Kodsi’s attorney in the criminal case could not be immediately reached.
A 2009 state comptroller’s audit found Total Care overcharged the state $248,202 for 4,633 claims. At the time, Kodsi told the Times Union he had just purchased the business that March from a chiropractor in Saratoga Springs. Kodsi said he had worked at the business since 2007.
The woman who used to work for Kodsi who alleges the assault also filed a complaint against him with the state Office of Professional Medical Conduct, as well as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.