Metro

Car charity scammer back in jail for Medicaid and food stamp fraud

She just got out of jail for pocketing $2 million in donations from her bogus “Hope for Disabled Kids” car-donation charity — and now scammer Tirnawati Shoba Bakhsh is back behind bars, accused of collecting Medicaid and food stamps while running the scam.

The slippery Bakhsh, 46, gallingly claimed she was indigent in letting Medicaid pay $185,000 in family doctor bills rung up in donating her kidney to her husband, Salim, 47, according to Welfare fraud and grand larceny charges brought against them today in Manhattan.

The Bakhsh’s were in fact far from indigent, according to prosecutors for the Manhattan DA’s public assistance fraud unit.

All the while she ran the charity scam, both husband and wife collected administrative salaries, and she still hasn’t paid back a cent of what she was convicted of stealing in donations, prosecutors said in court today.

The couple owns ten properties in Hernando County, Fla. and at least two properties in Queens, including the husband’s auto repair shop, authorities said.

Parents of three children ages 10, 12 and 14, the Bakhsh’s pleaded not guilty and must return to court Dec. 13. They are being held in lieu of $50,000 bail for the wife, and $35,000 bail for the husband, set by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus.

If the charges are true, “It is a gross violation of a law that is designed for people who need help,” the judge said in setting bail.