A U.S. bankruptcy trustee has sued a Rockland doctor for allegedly diverting funds from a Bedford Hills medical practice before seeking bankruptcy protection.
Trustee Mark S. Tulis is demanding that Dr. Jyotindra Shah return $120,000 to Amari Medical Scarsdale P.C. for the benefit of its creditors, in a June 21 complaint filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, White Plains.
Dr. Shah, of West Nyack, was trained in metabolic and nutritional medicine, according to online profiles, and Amari Medical, now on Central Park Avenue in Edgemont, offers disease prevention programs.
Amari Medical filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation last November, declaring $14,730 in assets and $992,416 in liabilities.
The trustee”™s complaint reaches back to 2018 when Shah was operating a wellness clinic in Bedford Hills. Amari Medical issued a $50,000 check to Shah in December of that year, and six months later issued a $70,000 check to the doctor.
The trustee argues that Amari Medical was insolvent when the checks were issued and it received nothing of value in return.
Two weeks after the second check was issued, Dr. Shah stated in a letter to his landlord, Diamond Properties, that the “business has been struggling and has not been able to be profitable,” according to the trustee”™s complaint.
The clinic closed on June 30, 2019.
Diamond Properties sued Amari Medical for the remaining rent on a 10-year lease, and it won a default judgment for $392,416.
Dr. Shah was asked during a 2020 deposition to whom and why the two checks were issued. He replied, according to the trustee”™s complaint, that he did not know or had no recollection.
But this past April, an attorney for Amari Medical asserted in a bankruptcy pleading that Dr. Shah “was never able to take a salary” from the business and that the two checks totaling $120,000 were for partial repayment of $490,000 in loans the doctor had made to Amari Medical to build out the shell office it rented from Diamond Properties.
The pleading also claims that Diamond Properties has overstated Amari Medical”™s debt because the landlord has not deducted rents from a new tenant who leases the same office space.
The bankruptcy trustee argues that the checks issued to Dr. Shah were improper because, among other reasons, they were made to “hinder, delay, or defraud” creditors.
