Their healthcare? Courtesy of the state
He has been a property owner, with three signature buildings in Downtown Crossing, a three-decker in Brookline, a commercial building in Sharon, and his stately $900,000 home in Chestnut Hill.
He has been a restaurateur, opening with his wife a Middle Eastern café in Brookline that drew a positive review. He has been a franchisee, with three Honey Dew Donut shops, and he has owned a convenience store and a fruit stand.
According to authorities, Jo seph Youshaei's seemingly nonstop entrepreneurship made him a wealthy man, worth between $2.4 and $2.6 million. He drove a Mercedes and his three children attended the private Maimonides School, at a cost of $39,820 a year.
But between 1999 and 2005, when authorities say Youshaei, 46, was involved in 19 separate businesses, he and his wife, Jila, were also falsely telling the state that they were poor, prosecutors say. In Suffolk Superior Court yesterday, prosecutors alleged that the couple claimed they earned just $475 a week in order to obtain free, taxpayer-funded healthcare for themselves and their children - $53,000 worth of care over six years.
The two counts each of procurement fraud and larceny over $250 by continuous scheme carry penalties of up to 15 years in prison.
At their arraignment yesterday, the couple stood grimly before Trial Magistrate Gary D. Wilson, who chided them for what he called disturbing allegations. The Youshaeis pleaded not guilty and left without speaking to a reporter. Outside the courtroom, their lawyer, William E. Gens, said the couple was never as wealthy as prosecutors allege.
"With regard to the issue of their wealth, that is perhaps quite a bit overblown," Gens said. "The Youshaeis had a number of business interests, but many of them have been failures, and many have been things that never went anywhere, and many of them are no longer in existence."
Indeed, the Youshaeis' life and means - as portrayed in court and property records, in a police report of a drug arrest, and described by people working in buildings that the couple owned - seem to suggest anything but the tidy existence of a comfortably rich family.
At the 1867 Renaissance Revival building on Temple Place in Downtown Crossing that court papers say Youshaei owned at one time, the door was locked and the offices were all vacant. At another of his properties, a 1902 Beaux Arts building on Temple Place, a woman who answered the buzzer said she had never heard his name. At the third Downtown Crossing property, the 1850 granite-style Boston Discount Jewelry Exchange Building on Washington Street, a proprietor of one of the jewelry stalls said Youshaei had not been involved in the building for more than a year. Several other discount jewelers in the area said Youshaei comes and goes, but they could not say what he does.
No one answered the door at the Chestnut Hill home listed in court papers as the couple's primary residence. At Youshaei's three-decker in Brookline, no one answered the buzzers. His restaurant, Jerusalem Café on Harvard Street, is now a Chinese restaurant; a man behind the counter said Jerusalem Café closed 11 years ago.
Court records show Youshaei is suing one former business partner, Kyong Horn, claiming that she owes him a share of profits for a minimall they developed in Downtown Crossing in 2006. Youshaei was to bring in tenants, and Horn was to manage the site. But Horn's lawyer said Youshaei never lived up to his side of the contract and is being countersued to force him to pay his share of the business's losses.
"He never brought in any tenants and walked out of the joint venture, and then he turned around and sued her for supposed lost profits," the lawyer, Julie E. Green, said in a phone interview yesterday. "The joint venture lost money. He owes his shares of losses. We expect to prevail."
She said the courts have tossed out many of Youshaei's claims against Horn. "He brought a completely meritless lawsuit against a very honest businesswoman," Green said.
In June 2003, Youshaei was arrested in Cleveland Circle. Police say they spotted him in his Mercedes snorting a brown powder through a straw, according to Suffolk court records. He was arrested with two bags of heroin and $2,213 in cash. He pleaded guilty to drug possession and prosecutors later gave back $1,735 of his cash, the court records show. It was not clear what sentence he received.
It was also unclear why, according to prosecutors, Jila and Joseph Youshaei had obtained benefits under MassHealth, the state Medicaid program. Gens said two family members had heart problems.
MassHealth officials said they uncovered the alleged fraud in 2004. The case was then referred to state Auditor Joseph DeNucci and to Attorney General Martha Coakley's office for criminal prosecution.
John Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com. Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com. 