The fat-cat operator of a Bronx nonprofit copped a plea Thursday to diverting more than $360,000 in government funds earmarked for cancer screening so he could live large with overseas trips, gambling outings and shopping sprees.
Joseph Junkovic, who ran the Cancer Service Network, faces 18 to 24 months in prison and must forfeit up to $360,556 after pleading guilty in Manhattan federal court to knowingly making false statements to the state Health Department. Authorities say he billed the agency for thousands of hours he never worked.
“This guy was certainly living a lavish lifestyle,” a source close to the case told The Post. “There were times he billed for enormous and impossible hours — more than 24 hours in a day — when he wasn’t even in the country.”
The 49-year-old Junkovic, sources said, spent taxpayer funds on top accommodations at Bally’s Las Vegas Hotel and Casino and on vacations in Italy, Austria and New Orleans. The sources said he gambled like a high roller, hung out with Playboy Bunnies on golf courses and even blew the money on items like a Gucci alligator belt in Italy.
The corpulent conman would also stuff his face at Smith & Wollensky steakhouses, sources said.
The case against Junkovic was brought by Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara and state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
Authorities say the Cancer Service Network obtained 18 government contracts totaling more than $25 million from April 2008 to September 2011 to administer screening services for low-income patients. But he directed the funds to a personal consulting company he ran out of his home, they said.
In one instance, CSN billed the state for more than 590 hours of Junkovic’s time in August 2010, even though travel and bank records show he was in Vienna, Austria, from Aug. 6 to Aug. 30 of that year.
“This plea sends a strong message to others who might defraud the state,” DiNapoli said.
Dressed in a button-down, blue-and-white striped shirt that looked like it was going to burst, the crook boasted to Judge Katherine Forrest that he had “helped” many poor people get screenings from 1991 until 2008 before copping to taking the government funds for himself.
“Did you know you were overbilling at the time?” the judge said.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Did you know it was wrong?” Forrest asked.
“Now I do,” a stone-faced Junkovic responded.
Junkovic initially was charged by the feds with diverting more than $700,000. He had faced up to five years in prison.
He’ll be sentenced July 30.