Lots of lawyers are making headlines, but as defendants

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Lots of lawyers are making headlines, but as defendants

Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News

WHITE PLAINS - Gail Gonzalez had plans for the $54,884.87 check she had just received from a lawyer's office for refinancing the mortgage on her two-bedroom co-op apartment in White Plains.

Definitely pay off some credit cards. Maybe buy a new car.

But what the insurance company worker did not know, did not even think about, was that the check from Anthony Bellettieri's law firm in Harrison was worthless.

"Who would expect or even suspect that a check from a lawyer would be bogus?" Gonzalez, 54, asked as she sat in the kitchen of her apartment recently.

Bellettieri is being investigated by the FBI in connection with the theft of perhaps millions of dollars in client funds. His case is just one in a sheaf of current and former lawyers who have made headlines for the wrong reasons recently.

Lawyers are expected to lead the evening news or have their names above the fold for representing defendants in high-profile criminal cases, not for being the defendants themselves.

But in the past two months, eight lawyers or former lawyers from the Lower Hudson Valley have been charged, pleaded guilty, sentenced, or investigated by state or federal prosecutors. Their crimes or alleged wrongdoing all involved financial misdeeds.

While it seems Gail Gonzalez's assumptions about lawyers and money have been turned upside down, experts said the cases are a hiccup rather than a burgeoning problem in the field.

"It is incredibly damaging to the profession," said Jay C. Carlisle, a professor at Pace University Law School who has taught courses on professional responsibility since 1977. "But lawyers are human beings. Out of more than 200,000 practitioners in any profession, as you have lawyers in New York, you're bound to have a few bad apples. I think it's more of a blip than a trend."

Fewer lawyers were disbarred or disciplined in 2004 than in any year since 1995, according to the most recent statistics from the New York State Bar Association.

Still, the recent headlines rankle lawyers.

"I think it really is a nightmare," said Richard Grayson, a White Plains lawyer who worked for the Ninth Judicial District Grievance Committee from 1978 to 1982 investigating allegations of wrongdoing by lawyers. He now defends lawyers and judges accused of ethical breaches. "The legal profession is an old and honorable profession. To see the name smeared really hurts the profession."

The recent cluster of cases began in December when Shelley Ann Rivera, 40, a White Plains lawyer who has admitted having a gambling problem, was arrested in Las Vegas and extradited to Westchester County to face charges she stole nearly $1 million from her aunt.

Tarrytown lawyer Gary Botchman was sentenced Dec. 15 in U.S. District Court in Suffolk County to four years' probation for his involvement in a scheme to obtain fraudulent real estate loans. Botchman was charged by federal prosecutors in 2004 and was disbarred in 2005. But his name appeared as one of two sellers' attorneys on closing documents in the 2006 sale of a Yonkers home that became the scene of a high-profile homicide.

Samuel Saunders, the seller of the home at 43 Brendon Hill Road, is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Dr. Leandro Lozada, the home's buyer, in early January. Saunders' other lawyer in the sale said Botchman acted only as a paralegal.

Robert Dell'Aquila, a disbarred lawyer from Yonkers, pleaded guilty Dec. 15 in state Supreme Court in White Plains to ripping off $90,668 from a client. The victim was unaware that Dell'Aquila had been disbarred in 2001, said Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore. Prosecutors said Dell'Aquila stole more than $180,000 from clients.

The federal investigation into Bellettieri also came to light in December. Bellettieri, 53, from Pleasantville, is under investigation in the theft of more than $10 million from real estate escrow accounts of clients.

J.P. Morgan Chase sued him and his firm, Bellettieri, Fonte and Laudonio, in December, saying $17 million was stolen through a check-kiting scheme. Bellettieri's lawyer, Murray Richman, said his client was cooperating with the U.S. Attorney's Office in its investigation.

Neal Comer, the lawyer representing Bellettieri's partners - Robert Fonte and Tara Anne Laudonio - has said his clients were victims in the case.

The Bellettieri case has been the talk of the legal community since news of it broke.

"I first heard about it at a holiday party in early December, where it was the talk of the get-together," Grayson said. "And then it was the talk of every other gathering I went to."

The new year brought three more cases prosecuted by DiFiore's office. Chase Caro, 48, a Greenburgh lawyer, was charged with felony grand larceny. Prosecutors say he bounced a check for $310,000 to an elderly client who entrusted him with more than $470,000 from a home sale.

Denise Cooper, 54, of Elmsford was charged a week later with stealing nearly $100,000 from a client in the foreclosure sale of a home in Peekskill. A week after that, Matthew Neuren, 49, a disbarred lawyer from Tuxedo, pleaded guilty to defrauding a Scarsdale couple of nearly $50,000.

And just last week a partner in the law firm of former Westchester County Executive Alfred DelBello was arrested along with his wife on tax evasion charges. Daniel Tartaglia, a former Rye town councilman, and his wife, Linda, were charged with repeated failures to file state income tax returns, a felony.

The recent spate of state cases represent a focus of the Westchester County District Attorney's Office, a spokeswoman for DiFiore said.

"The District Attorney's Office is making a continuing push against corruption in the criminal justice system," Christina Frantom said. "One of the district attorney's mandates since taking office is to prosecute public corruption of all types."

Victims of wrongdoing by lawyers do have a place to turn to get compensated: other lawyers.

In 1981, the state Legislature passed a law creating The Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection after various bar associations throughout the state asked New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, to help establish a means to reimburse clients ripped off by lawyers. Since then, $60 of the $350 registration fee lawyers pay every two years goes to the fund, said Timothy J. O'Sullivan, the fund's executive director. The fund gets no taxpayer money.

Clients who have been fleeced by lawyers can apply for reimbursement up to $300,000. Since 1982, the fund has paid out $116 million to wronged clients, according to the fund's 2005 report.

Like the state bar disciplinary statistics, the fund's numbers also show no dramatic rise in wrongdoing by lawyers. In 2005, there were 729 claims filed with the fund, representing $21.8 million in alleged losses. Both were double-digit percentage increases over 2004, but still well below the more than 1,100 claims filed in 1997.

Only 32 lawyers were responsible for client losses in 2005, representing a tiny fraction of nearly 230,000 registered lawyers in the state, O'Sullivan said.

"Thirty two out of 229,000 is a small number," O'Sullivan said. "But it's not a number that is insignificant. It's a number the New York State Bar Association realizes is unacceptable."

The fund's report contains a profile of the average offender: middle-aged, male, solo practitioner.

"Most of the lawyers who come to our attention tend to be on the fringe," he said.

Often, drugs or alcohol play a role in the lawyer's downfall.

"In more recent times, it's been gambling, too," O'Sullivan said.

Grayson said the stresses of the job, running a business in addition to practicing law, may contribute to some crossing the line. Carlisle said lawyers are taught to be risk takers, and that may be their undoing.

"Lawyers by their training learn how to calculate risk and take chances, and they get very good at it," he said.

Lawyers' real estate escrow accounts are not audited in the region, either, Grayson said.

"Sometimes it's as simple as money," he said. "Escrow money is seen as easy money."

O'Sullivan said the fund had gotten calls about the Bellettieri case. He declined to say how many or discuss details of the claims.

"I'm very familiar with the Bellettieri situation and we are following it closely," he said.

Gail Gonzalez has filed claims against Bellettieri with the Ninth Judicial District Grievance Committee and with the Lawyers' Fund. They told her they can't move on her claims until the criminal investigation is resolved, she said.

Until then, she still doesn't have her money, and the mortgage company still wants its $400 additional payment each month.

"I'm angry. ... I have some other words, but I can't use them," she said. "I just want justice. I just want my money."

Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.