Federal prosecutors charged a man on Wednesday with stealing more than $500,000 in government aid meant for school meals for poor children in the Boerum Hill day care center he ran.
The feds say that Andy Lewis, the former executive director of the Better Brooklyn Community Center, lied to the state Department of Health by claiming he provided 355 to 385 meals and snacks per day between August, 2004 and October, 2006, when he actually provided ”no meals … to children in any of the programs.”
“He stole nutritious food from the mouths of hundreds of the city’s children,” said Mark Mershon, an assistant director-in-charge of the FBI, which helped conduct the investigation.
Lewis faces 20 years in prison.
The case against culminates more than a year of trouble for Lewis and his nonprofit which were rocked last year for allegedly unsafe conditions in the group’s new daycare facility in Cobble Hill and for failing to refund tuition to parents.
Neither Lewis nor his lawyer could be reached for comment.
