Zakia Khan #

Introduction #

Zakia Khan, a Brooklyn social adult day care owner, was sentenced to 76 months — about six years and four months — in federal prison on September 10, 2026, for her leadership role in a $64 million Medicaid fraud and illegal kickback scheme run through her two Coney Island day care centers and a home health care company. Khan, now 55, was caught on a secret undercover camera smiling as she counted out stacks of kickback cash for a Medicaid recipient at her Happy Family day care office, footage the New York Post highlighted in covering her sentencing . She did not contest the fraud at trial: Khan pleaded guilty in August 2025 to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States and to pay and receive health care kickbacks . She was ordered to pay more than $56 million in restitution and to forfeit $5 million in properties, cash, gold and jewelry seized from her home .

Background Information #

Khan owned and operated Happy Family Social Adult Day Care Center Inc. and Family Social Adult Day Care Center Inc., two social adult day cares in Brooklyn’s Coney Island section, along with Responsible Care Staffing Inc., a home health care fiscal intermediary in Medicaid’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, and Tanwee Services Inc., an entity prosecutors said was used to receive and disguise fraud proceeds . Social adult day cares and the CDPAP home-care program are intended to support seniors and people with disabilities; watchdogs have long criticized the New York program as lightly supervised, with hundreds of “middleman” firms acting as payroll agents between caregivers and Medicaid under minimal oversight . Reporting on her 2024 indictment described Happy Family’s website promoting Khan as its smiling founder, and said she and seven others were charged in what officials called a $68 million scheme . Federal investigators from HHS-OIG, Homeland Security Investigations and the NYPD built the case against her operation .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

Adjudicated vs. alleged. Khan pleaded guilty before United States District Judge Natasha C. Merle to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States and to pay and receive health care kickbacks, admissions that are a matter of court record. Details attributed below to prosecutors’ court filings that go beyond her plea remain prosecutorial allegations, but her conviction itself is final for sentencing purposes and was the basis of her prison term.

According to the Justice Department, beginning around October 2017 and continuing through about July 2024, Khan and marketers she employed referred Medicaid recipients to her social adult day cares and, in exchange for kickbacks and bribes, paid those recipients for services the day cares then billed to Medicaid but did not provide, or that were induced by the kickbacks themselves . Prosecutors allege Khan and her co-defendants laundered the proceeds through multiple business entities to generate the cash used for the payoffs . The day cares fraudulently billed Medicaid roughly $64 million for phony treatments, of which Medicaid actually paid out about $56 million, according to federal prosecutors and the New York Post’s account of court records . The scheme’s most vivid image came from a 2023 meeting at her Happy Family office on West 32nd Street near Mermaid Avenue, where court records say Khan was secretly recorded excitedly counting out a stack of cash for an undercover officer posing as a Medicaid client . Khan admitted her conduct by pleading guilty; her co-defendants’ cases proceeded separately.

Public Reaction and Consequences #

Federal officials framed the sentence as accountability for exploiting programs meant for vulnerable people. Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti said at her plea that Khan “orchestrated a massive scheme to defraud Medicaid, bribing patients to bill a federal health care program for over $68 million,” adding that “Americans will not stand for these schemes” . At sentencing, HHS Office of Inspector General Acting Deputy Inspector General Bennett said the services “are designed to support seniors, not line the pockets of fraudsters,” calling the sentence a message that anyone who exploits Medicaid will be held accountable . U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said that with her plea Khan stood “convicted of acting as the ringleader of a scheme responsible for stealing millions of dollars dedicated to the government’s health care safety net” . The case fed broader criticism of New York’s Medicaid home-care programs: the Post noted watchdogs’ long-running allegations that CDPAP is rife with corruption and abuse, and Home Health Care News placed Khan’s sentence inside a federal crackdown that has included more than $1 billion in deferred Medicaid payments for high-risk claims . A defense attorney representing Khan in court did not immediately respond to the Post’s request for comment .

Current Status #

Khan is serving a 76-month prison term imposed by Judge Merle at a September 10, 2026 hearing in Brooklyn federal court, followed by the supervised-release term the court ordered; she had faced a statutory maximum of 15 years at the time of her plea . She was also ordered to pay more than $56 million in restitution and to forfeit $5 million, including two properties, stacks of cash and a trove of gold jewelry seized during a search of her Brooklyn home . The Post noted she pleaded guilty “last August,” matching the Justice Department’s August 6, 2025 plea announcement . Her day care companies’ fraudulent billing ended with the scheme’s July 2024 wind-down, and her sentencing was covered nationally within a day as part of renewed attention to Medicaid fraud in New York’s home-care system .

Impact on Their Career/Life #

Khan’s businesses are gone as going concerns: she has been ordered to forfeit the properties and assets bought with fraud proceeds, and restitution of more than $56 million — the amount Medicaid actually paid on her day cares’ fraudulent claims — follows her beyond prison . Her case is now cited in industry and policy coverage as an example of the leadership-level fraud federal prosecutors target in social adult day care and fiscal-intermediary operations . The undercover cash-counting footage made her the public face of the $64 million scheme, replayed in sentencing coverage alongside images of the gold and cash seized from her home . Because her guilt rests on her own plea rather than a trial verdict, the court-record facts here are her admissions and sentence; any scheme details beyond them remain as alleged by prosecutors. At 76 months, she is expected to remain in federal custody into the early 2030s, with restitution obligations that outlast her release.