Sunday, February 25, 2007
Feds charge White Plains CEO in ID theft
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Feds charge White Plains CEO in ID theft
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
WHITE PLAINS - A onetime Westchester business person of the year stole his employees' identities and rang up more than $1 million in bank loans and credit card charges in their names, federal authorities said.
Terrence Chalk, 44, the chief executive officer of Compulinx Managed Services, a computer management firm in White Plains, was indicted along with his nephew, Damon Chalk, by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy, credit card fraud, and making false statements to banks.
He was arrested yesterday morning by FBI agents at his White Plains apartment. He pleaded not guilty in federal court to the charges.
Chalk is accused of getting loans from banks by falsely placing employees on the applications as guarantors of the loans without their knowledge. He used their names, addresses, and Social Security numbers to secure more than $1 million in bank loans between 2001 and 2006, prosecutors said. He is accused of falsely stating on the applications that the employees were owners and officers of his companies, leaving them on the hook for paying off the notes.
Chalk also ran up $100,000 in credit-card charges using accounts opened with employees' identities, federal authorities said. It wasn't immediately clear what Chalk allegedly spent the cash on.
Compulinx employs about 50 people at its 333 Westchester Ave. office. Chalk founded Compulinx 16 years ago on Long Island and moved to White Plains 11 years ago. The company's Web site was down yesterday and calls went unanswered.
Chalk and Compulinx were inducted in April into the Hall of Fame by the Business Council of Westchester, the county's chamber of commerce. He serves on the boards of the American Red Cross and Hospice and Palliative Care of Westchester. He was nominated last year to the White Plains Youth Bureau. He was named business person of the year in February by the Westchester chapter of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.
"He, in fact, has won awards with respect to how he has run his business," said Mayo Bartlett, his lawyer.
But FBI agents didn't show up at his White Plains apartment yesterday morning with a plaque. They came armed with a federal indictment when they knocked on his door at 7 a.m. at 308 Park Ridge Lane. Chalk did not answer the door despite repeated attempts by FBI agents to gain entry, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene Ingoglia.
"That doesn't exactly sound like he was being cooperative," Ingoglia said. The case agent, John Flanagan, was at the prosecution table in court yesterday.
Chalk, whose brother is a federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent, did not know he was under investigation until the FBI showed up at his apartment door yesterday, Bartlett said.
"There was no attempt on the part of Mr. Chalk to flee from the agents," Bartlett said.
Chalk, dressed in a black polo shirt, dark dress pants and shoes, nodded his head vigorously as his lawyer spoke. U.S. Magistrate Judge George Yanthis ordered Chalk held on $250,000 bond. Bartlett declined to comment on the case as he left court.
Damon Chalk, 35, of Florida, was arrested by FBI agents yesterday morning after he landed at La Guardia Airport. He worked with his uncle from 2003 until 2006, federal authorities said. He is accused of using bogus tax returns to secure a $100,000 line of credit from M&T Bank in White Plains. He has an outstanding warrant from White Plains City Court after Terrence Chalk filed a complaint with White Plains police in June charging that Damon Chalk trespassed on the company's property. He was ordered held without bail.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Feds charge White Plains CEO in ID theft
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
WHITE PLAINS - A onetime Westchester business person of the year stole his employees' identities and rang up more than $1 million in bank loans and credit card charges in their names, federal authorities said.
Terrence Chalk, 44, the chief executive officer of Compulinx Managed Services, a computer management firm in White Plains, was indicted along with his nephew, Damon Chalk, by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy, credit card fraud, and making false statements to banks.
He was arrested yesterday morning by FBI agents at his White Plains apartment. He pleaded not guilty in federal court to the charges.
Chalk is accused of getting loans from banks by falsely placing employees on the applications as guarantors of the loans without their knowledge. He used their names, addresses, and Social Security numbers to secure more than $1 million in bank loans between 2001 and 2006, prosecutors said. He is accused of falsely stating on the applications that the employees were owners and officers of his companies, leaving them on the hook for paying off the notes.
Chalk also ran up $100,000 in credit-card charges using accounts opened with employees' identities, federal authorities said. It wasn't immediately clear what Chalk allegedly spent the cash on.
Compulinx employs about 50 people at its 333 Westchester Ave. office. Chalk founded Compulinx 16 years ago on Long Island and moved to White Plains 11 years ago. The company's Web site was down yesterday and calls went unanswered.
Chalk and Compulinx were inducted in April into the Hall of Fame by the Business Council of Westchester, the county's chamber of commerce. He serves on the boards of the American Red Cross and Hospice and Palliative Care of Westchester. He was nominated last year to the White Plains Youth Bureau. He was named business person of the year in February by the Westchester chapter of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.
"He, in fact, has won awards with respect to how he has run his business," said Mayo Bartlett, his lawyer.
But FBI agents didn't show up at his White Plains apartment yesterday morning with a plaque. They came armed with a federal indictment when they knocked on his door at 7 a.m. at 308 Park Ridge Lane. Chalk did not answer the door despite repeated attempts by FBI agents to gain entry, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Eugene Ingoglia.
"That doesn't exactly sound like he was being cooperative," Ingoglia said. The case agent, John Flanagan, was at the prosecution table in court yesterday.
Chalk, whose brother is a federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent, did not know he was under investigation until the FBI showed up at his apartment door yesterday, Bartlett said.
"There was no attempt on the part of Mr. Chalk to flee from the agents," Bartlett said.
Chalk, dressed in a black polo shirt, dark dress pants and shoes, nodded his head vigorously as his lawyer spoke. U.S. Magistrate Judge George Yanthis ordered Chalk held on $250,000 bond. Bartlett declined to comment on the case as he left court.
Damon Chalk, 35, of Florida, was arrested by FBI agents yesterday morning after he landed at La Guardia Airport. He worked with his uncle from 2003 until 2006, federal authorities said. He is accused of using bogus tax returns to secure a $100,000 line of credit from M&T Bank in White Plains. He has an outstanding warrant from White Plains City Court after Terrence Chalk filed a complaint with White Plains police in June charging that Damon Chalk trespassed on the company's property. He was ordered held without bail.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Judge spares contractor in Gambino case
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Judge spares contractor in Gambino case
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
NEW YORK - Neil Delieto is a tough guy who's lived a tough life.
The 59-year-old Yonkers man served two tours of combat duty in Vietnam, suffering severe wounds from a friendly fire incident. He buried a wife. He lost a young child in a house fire.
He also has not lived a mistake-free life.
In 2004, frustrated with his failing efforts to collect more than $100,000 he was owed for an excavation job in Yonkers, the contractor turned to Scarsdale mobster Gregory DePalma, who since has been convicted of racketeering and other charges and sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.
He enlisted DePalma to use the often violent powers of persuasion that Mafia capos possess to persuade the owner of Global Interiors to pay Delieto. DePalma, of course, would receive a healthy cut of that payment in return.
Delieto pleaded guilty in July to the attempted extortion of Hugh Harris, owner of Global Interiors. By statute, Delieto faced up to 20 years in prison. His plea agreement said the likely sentencing guidelines term was about a year in prison.
Yesterday, though, a judge spared Delieto from any time behind bars, citing his military record.
"He accepted the draft. He put himself in harm's way to serve his country," U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said during Delieto's sentencing in federal court in Manhattan. "I recognize that."
Hellerstein sentenced the owner of NDL Associates to three years' probation and fined him $5,000.
"Basically, I want to have assurance that this is never going to happen again," Hellerstein said as Delieto started to read a prepared statement. Delieto put down the sheet of paper, removed his glasses and looked at the judge.
"It was a mistake that will never be made again," Delieto said.
Delieto was one of 32 reputed leaders, members and associates of the Gambino crime family charged in March 2005, following a two-year investigation by the FBI's White Plains office that centered on DePalma's Westchester crew. Federal agents secretly recorded thousands of hours of DePalma discussing a wide range of criminal efforts.
On several of those recordings, DePalma and Delieto discussed the problems Delieto was having trying to get paid. Delieto expressed frustration. DePalma told him to let the aging capo handle it.
"I'm working this kid," DePalma said at one point, referring to Harris, who was not charged with any crime.
"You go to a character like Mr. DePalma to help you get paid, you know what you're doing," Hellerstein said yesterday.
Delieto refused a Purple Heart for the wounds he received in Vietnam, saying he didn't deserve one because enemy fire didn't cause his injuries.
Yesterday, a judge gave him something better than a medal. He gave him a break.
"I feel that someone who's done the things you've done deserves one."
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Judge spares contractor in Gambino case
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
NEW YORK - Neil Delieto is a tough guy who's lived a tough life.
The 59-year-old Yonkers man served two tours of combat duty in Vietnam, suffering severe wounds from a friendly fire incident. He buried a wife. He lost a young child in a house fire.
He also has not lived a mistake-free life.
In 2004, frustrated with his failing efforts to collect more than $100,000 he was owed for an excavation job in Yonkers, the contractor turned to Scarsdale mobster Gregory DePalma, who since has been convicted of racketeering and other charges and sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.
He enlisted DePalma to use the often violent powers of persuasion that Mafia capos possess to persuade the owner of Global Interiors to pay Delieto. DePalma, of course, would receive a healthy cut of that payment in return.
Delieto pleaded guilty in July to the attempted extortion of Hugh Harris, owner of Global Interiors. By statute, Delieto faced up to 20 years in prison. His plea agreement said the likely sentencing guidelines term was about a year in prison.
Yesterday, though, a judge spared Delieto from any time behind bars, citing his military record.
"He accepted the draft. He put himself in harm's way to serve his country," U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said during Delieto's sentencing in federal court in Manhattan. "I recognize that."
Hellerstein sentenced the owner of NDL Associates to three years' probation and fined him $5,000.
"Basically, I want to have assurance that this is never going to happen again," Hellerstein said as Delieto started to read a prepared statement. Delieto put down the sheet of paper, removed his glasses and looked at the judge.
"It was a mistake that will never be made again," Delieto said.
Delieto was one of 32 reputed leaders, members and associates of the Gambino crime family charged in March 2005, following a two-year investigation by the FBI's White Plains office that centered on DePalma's Westchester crew. Federal agents secretly recorded thousands of hours of DePalma discussing a wide range of criminal efforts.
On several of those recordings, DePalma and Delieto discussed the problems Delieto was having trying to get paid. Delieto expressed frustration. DePalma told him to let the aging capo handle it.
"I'm working this kid," DePalma said at one point, referring to Harris, who was not charged with any crime.
"You go to a character like Mr. DePalma to help you get paid, you know what you're doing," Hellerstein said yesterday.
Delieto refused a Purple Heart for the wounds he received in Vietnam, saying he didn't deserve one because enemy fire didn't cause his injuries.
Yesterday, a judge gave him something better than a medal. He gave him a break.
"I feel that someone who's done the things you've done deserves one."
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
DePalma described as an abusive, controlling father
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
DePalma described as an abusive, controlling father
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
NEW YORK - Growing up Gotti? Fuhgeddaboutit. Try growing up DePalma.
The son of convicted Scarsdale crime family capo Gregory DePalma says he moved to Ohio to escape the criminal reach of his Gambino father.
But it wasn't far enough.
In letters to the judge who will sentence him, Michael DePalma and his mother, Teri, rip the aging gangster for leading the son into trouble.
"Michael has a heart and soul," Teri DePalma wrote in a letter to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, "unlike his father who is devoid of any heart and soul."
Michael DePalma, 44, pleaded guilty to receiving stolen cars from his father and faces up to a year in prison when he is sentenced next week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Gregory DePalma, 74, is serving a sentence of more than 12 years following his racketeering conviction by a jury in June. The DePalmas were among 32 reputed leaders, members and associates of the Gambino crime family charged last year in a racketeering case that centered on Gregory DePalma's Westchester-based crew.
The younger DePalma and his wife, Charlene, describe the veteran mafioso as an abusive and controlling tyrant. Their letters are contained in a package of pre-sentencing filings meant to persuade Hellerstein to impose a sentence of probation rather than prison.
Growing up in Yonkers, Michael DePalma told his friends that his dad, reputedly a made member of the Gambinos since the late 1970s, was a jeweler. He was terrified of his father, Charlene DePalma wrote. Gregory DePalma thought his son was "weak and too sensitive," she wrote. When Michael and Charlene DePalma returned home from their honeymoon in 1986, they were greeted not with hugs, but with a slap, Charlene DePalma wrote.
"I watched him hit Michael in the face as he stepped out of the car," she wrote. "Then his dad started screaming at him. Michael did not say a word."
In his own letter to the judge, Michael DePalma said he and his wife waited until his father was imprisoned in 1998 to flee to a small town in Ohio. Michael DePalma got a job for a telecommunications company and settled in to life in middle America.
"I could not have been happier," he wrote.
But he grew increasingly agitated as his father's release date approached in early 2003, his wife wrote.
His father reached out for him in 2004, offering him a 1995 BMW and 1990 Cadillac Fleetwood as gifts. Gregory DePalma told his son the cars were not stolen.
But aware of who his father is, the younger DePalma knew "in his heart" the cars had been pilfered, his lawyer, Louis Cherico wrote. Michael DePalma said he had severed all ties to his father since his arrest.
"I should have known better than to believe him and accept the vehicles," Michael DePalma wrote.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
DePalma described as an abusive, controlling father
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
NEW YORK - Growing up Gotti? Fuhgeddaboutit. Try growing up DePalma.
The son of convicted Scarsdale crime family capo Gregory DePalma says he moved to Ohio to escape the criminal reach of his Gambino father.
But it wasn't far enough.
In letters to the judge who will sentence him, Michael DePalma and his mother, Teri, rip the aging gangster for leading the son into trouble.
"Michael has a heart and soul," Teri DePalma wrote in a letter to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, "unlike his father who is devoid of any heart and soul."
Michael DePalma, 44, pleaded guilty to receiving stolen cars from his father and faces up to a year in prison when he is sentenced next week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Gregory DePalma, 74, is serving a sentence of more than 12 years following his racketeering conviction by a jury in June. The DePalmas were among 32 reputed leaders, members and associates of the Gambino crime family charged last year in a racketeering case that centered on Gregory DePalma's Westchester-based crew.
The younger DePalma and his wife, Charlene, describe the veteran mafioso as an abusive and controlling tyrant. Their letters are contained in a package of pre-sentencing filings meant to persuade Hellerstein to impose a sentence of probation rather than prison.
Growing up in Yonkers, Michael DePalma told his friends that his dad, reputedly a made member of the Gambinos since the late 1970s, was a jeweler. He was terrified of his father, Charlene DePalma wrote. Gregory DePalma thought his son was "weak and too sensitive," she wrote. When Michael and Charlene DePalma returned home from their honeymoon in 1986, they were greeted not with hugs, but with a slap, Charlene DePalma wrote.
"I watched him hit Michael in the face as he stepped out of the car," she wrote. "Then his dad started screaming at him. Michael did not say a word."
In his own letter to the judge, Michael DePalma said he and his wife waited until his father was imprisoned in 1998 to flee to a small town in Ohio. Michael DePalma got a job for a telecommunications company and settled in to life in middle America.
"I could not have been happier," he wrote.
But he grew increasingly agitated as his father's release date approached in early 2003, his wife wrote.
His father reached out for him in 2004, offering him a 1995 BMW and 1990 Cadillac Fleetwood as gifts. Gregory DePalma told his son the cars were not stolen.
But aware of who his father is, the younger DePalma knew "in his heart" the cars had been pilfered, his lawyer, Louis Cherico wrote. Michael DePalma said he had severed all ties to his father since his arrest.
"I should have known better than to believe him and accept the vehicles," Michael DePalma wrote.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Teamster faces ban for tie to mobster
Sunday, December 3, 2006
Teamster faces ban for tie to mobster
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
Contractors, doctors, and entertainment honchos have all felt the sting of palling around with convicted Scarsdale mobster Gregory DePalma.
Blue-collar workers can now be added to that list.
A court-empowered union watchdog panel is recommending that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters lodge charges against a Local 456 member from New Rochelle for associating with DePalma. If the charges of violating the union's constitution are upheld, Joseph Pirro could be banned for life from the Teamsters union.
Pirro enlisted DePalma's aid in trying to start his own recycling business and used his connection to DePalma to get his girlfriend a catering job at a Bronx strip club that was owned by a member of DePalma's crew, according to a 17-page report sent last week from the Independent Review Board to IBT President James Hoffa.
"The evidence showed that Pirro had knowing and purposeful contact with La Cosa Nostra member Gregory DePalma," the board wrote in the report.
Pirro joined Local 456 in October 2001. He was suspended by the 3,800-member local in July for not paying his union dues. Elmsford-based Local 456 has been in a running battle with the IRB for nearly a decade over allegations that the family of long-time president Edward Doyle Sr. ran the local primarily for their own benefit. In January 2003, the Teamsters took over the local after an IRB investigation leveled charges of nepotism and mismanagement against president Bernard Doyle, Edward Doyle Sr.'s brother.
But last year control returned to the Doyle family when Edward Doyle Jr. was elected president of the local that represents workers in the construction, delivery, and public service sectors of the Lower Hudson Valley. He did not return calls seeking comment on the allegations against Pirro.
Pirro's last known address is on Sylvan Place in New Rochelle. But he hasn't lived there in months, the daughter of his ex-girlfriend said Friday. Liz Berlingo said the trucking company her mother, Pam, and Pirro formed in 2003, J&P Transport, was defunct. She said the family hadn't seen him in more than two months, though his mail is still delivered to their home and his dogs are still at the house. She said she didn't know where he now lived or how to reach him.
In testimony before the IRB in April, Pirro admitted he knew DePalma was an organized crime figure. He testified that he was introduced to DePalma in 2003 by reputed Genovese associate Patrick Lombardo.
DePalma was arrested in March 2005 along with 31 other reputed leaders, members, and associates of the Gambino crime family following a two-year investigation by the FBI's White Plains office that centered on DePalma's crew. Prominent Westchester physicians and contractors were ensnared in the case. DePalma was caught on tape extorting Liza Minnelli's manager to pay for trips to Las Vegas for mobsters' wives. DePalma is now serving a 151-month sentence on a federal racketeering conviction.
Pirro used to take Pam Berlingo's home-cooked meals to DePalma at United Hebrew Geriatric Center in New Rochelle, where the Gambino Crime Family capo conducted mob business at the bedside of his comatose son, Craig, according to the IRB report. Pirro testified that he met with DePalma at least 20 times between 2003 and and 2005.
Pirro told DePalma that Berlingo wanted to get into catering. DePalma got her a job catering at the Crazy Horse strip club in the Bronx for six months.
At the nursing home, the capo introduced Pirro to his friends. Pirro said he didn't ask who they were or what they did.
"I didn't want to know nothing," he testified.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Teamster faces ban for tie to mobster
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
Contractors, doctors, and entertainment honchos have all felt the sting of palling around with convicted Scarsdale mobster Gregory DePalma.
Blue-collar workers can now be added to that list.
A court-empowered union watchdog panel is recommending that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters lodge charges against a Local 456 member from New Rochelle for associating with DePalma. If the charges of violating the union's constitution are upheld, Joseph Pirro could be banned for life from the Teamsters union.
Pirro enlisted DePalma's aid in trying to start his own recycling business and used his connection to DePalma to get his girlfriend a catering job at a Bronx strip club that was owned by a member of DePalma's crew, according to a 17-page report sent last week from the Independent Review Board to IBT President James Hoffa.
"The evidence showed that Pirro had knowing and purposeful contact with La Cosa Nostra member Gregory DePalma," the board wrote in the report.
Pirro joined Local 456 in October 2001. He was suspended by the 3,800-member local in July for not paying his union dues. Elmsford-based Local 456 has been in a running battle with the IRB for nearly a decade over allegations that the family of long-time president Edward Doyle Sr. ran the local primarily for their own benefit. In January 2003, the Teamsters took over the local after an IRB investigation leveled charges of nepotism and mismanagement against president Bernard Doyle, Edward Doyle Sr.'s brother.
But last year control returned to the Doyle family when Edward Doyle Jr. was elected president of the local that represents workers in the construction, delivery, and public service sectors of the Lower Hudson Valley. He did not return calls seeking comment on the allegations against Pirro.
Pirro's last known address is on Sylvan Place in New Rochelle. But he hasn't lived there in months, the daughter of his ex-girlfriend said Friday. Liz Berlingo said the trucking company her mother, Pam, and Pirro formed in 2003, J&P Transport, was defunct. She said the family hadn't seen him in more than two months, though his mail is still delivered to their home and his dogs are still at the house. She said she didn't know where he now lived or how to reach him.
In testimony before the IRB in April, Pirro admitted he knew DePalma was an organized crime figure. He testified that he was introduced to DePalma in 2003 by reputed Genovese associate Patrick Lombardo.
DePalma was arrested in March 2005 along with 31 other reputed leaders, members, and associates of the Gambino crime family following a two-year investigation by the FBI's White Plains office that centered on DePalma's crew. Prominent Westchester physicians and contractors were ensnared in the case. DePalma was caught on tape extorting Liza Minnelli's manager to pay for trips to Las Vegas for mobsters' wives. DePalma is now serving a 151-month sentence on a federal racketeering conviction.
Pirro used to take Pam Berlingo's home-cooked meals to DePalma at United Hebrew Geriatric Center in New Rochelle, where the Gambino Crime Family capo conducted mob business at the bedside of his comatose son, Craig, according to the IRB report. Pirro testified that he met with DePalma at least 20 times between 2003 and and 2005.
Pirro told DePalma that Berlingo wanted to get into catering. DePalma got her a job catering at the Crazy Horse strip club in the Bronx for six months.
At the nursing home, the capo introduced Pirro to his friends. Pirro said he didn't ask who they were or what they did.
"I didn't want to know nothing," he testified.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Prosecutors say they failed to give evidence to defense in Balancio case
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Prosecutors say they failed to give evidence to defense in Balancio case
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
Westchester County prosecutors have acknowledged they improperly withheld evidence from reputed Tanglewood Boys gang member Anthony DiSimone in the trial in which he was convicted of killing a Yonkers college student.
A federal judge will now decide whether to drop the charges against DiSimone or order a new trial for him in the Feb. 4, 1994, stabbing death of 21-year-old Louis Balancio during a brawl outside a Yonkers bar.
"I believe it's a victory," said David Fuereisen, DiSimone's lawyer, after an appearance yesterday before U.S. District Judge Charles Brieant in federal court during which Westchester County prosecutors submitted an affidavit agreeing to DiSimone's request to have his conviction declared invalid due to legal error.
Last month, Assistant District Attorney Valerie Livingston wrote a letter to Fuereisen saying that a review of 52 boxes of evidence from the case revealed several documents that should have been turned over to the defense during the trial but were not.
Yesterday, Livingston said prosecutors were agreeing to DiSimone's motion, called a writ of habeas corpus, in the interests of justice.
"We are doing these things, your honor, out of a sense of fairness and justice," she said. A spokesman for Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore declined to comment further.
Some of the evidence prosecutors have turned over to the defense points to someone other than DiSimone as the killer, Fuereisen said.
But Jeffrey Balancio, a former Yonkers city councilman, said he remains "100 percent" sure that the right man was convicted of his son's killing.
"I am very confident that the D.A.'s Office will continue to prevail and justice will be served," he said. He called the evidence that DiSimone did not get during his first trial "incidental stuff" that won't make a difference if there is a retrial.
He and his wife, Dorothy, went to court yesterday prepared for what happened.
Dorothy Balancio, a sociology and behavioral sciences professor at Mercy College, took deep breaths, adjusted her orange sweater and tapped her feet as she waited for the hearing to begin.
"I didn't think we'd have to do this again," she said softly.
Louis Balancio was stabbed 13 times during a brawl outside the Strike Zone bar on Central Avenue in Yonkers on Feb. 4, 1994. Dozens of witnesses saw the fight, but none came forward out of fear of the gang to which DiSimone was alleged to have belonged, the Tanglewood Boys, a group that federal authorities said served as a proving ground for future Mafia members.
DiSimone disappeared after the killing. Following an international manhunt, he walked into a Yonkers police precinct Nov. 9, 1999, and surrendered. He was convicted of murder in October 2000 and sentenced to 25 years to life.
If there is a second trial, Jeffrey Balancio said, he believes the case against DiSimone, now 40, could be more convincing this time.
"Maybe people now will be less intimidated by the gang that ruled the neighborhood then and we'll have even stronger evidence," he said.
Fuereisen, DiSimone's lawyer, will argue that there shouldn't be a second trial when he submits papers to Brieant later this month. Westchester prosecutors are expected to ask Brieant for a new trial in state Supreme Court when they reply next month.
Jeffrey Balancio said he and his wife have as much faith in DiFiore's office as they did in former District Attorney Jeanine Pirro. But he said that faith doesn't lessen the pain of this latest turn in the saga.
"Time doesn't heal all wounds," he said. "Sometimes it just gives others the opportunity to pick at the scabs."
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tppoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Prosecutors say they failed to give evidence to defense in Balancio case
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
Westchester County prosecutors have acknowledged they improperly withheld evidence from reputed Tanglewood Boys gang member Anthony DiSimone in the trial in which he was convicted of killing a Yonkers college student.
A federal judge will now decide whether to drop the charges against DiSimone or order a new trial for him in the Feb. 4, 1994, stabbing death of 21-year-old Louis Balancio during a brawl outside a Yonkers bar.
"I believe it's a victory," said David Fuereisen, DiSimone's lawyer, after an appearance yesterday before U.S. District Judge Charles Brieant in federal court during which Westchester County prosecutors submitted an affidavit agreeing to DiSimone's request to have his conviction declared invalid due to legal error.
Last month, Assistant District Attorney Valerie Livingston wrote a letter to Fuereisen saying that a review of 52 boxes of evidence from the case revealed several documents that should have been turned over to the defense during the trial but were not.
Yesterday, Livingston said prosecutors were agreeing to DiSimone's motion, called a writ of habeas corpus, in the interests of justice.
"We are doing these things, your honor, out of a sense of fairness and justice," she said. A spokesman for Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore declined to comment further.
Some of the evidence prosecutors have turned over to the defense points to someone other than DiSimone as the killer, Fuereisen said.
But Jeffrey Balancio, a former Yonkers city councilman, said he remains "100 percent" sure that the right man was convicted of his son's killing.
"I am very confident that the D.A.'s Office will continue to prevail and justice will be served," he said. He called the evidence that DiSimone did not get during his first trial "incidental stuff" that won't make a difference if there is a retrial.
He and his wife, Dorothy, went to court yesterday prepared for what happened.
Dorothy Balancio, a sociology and behavioral sciences professor at Mercy College, took deep breaths, adjusted her orange sweater and tapped her feet as she waited for the hearing to begin.
"I didn't think we'd have to do this again," she said softly.
Louis Balancio was stabbed 13 times during a brawl outside the Strike Zone bar on Central Avenue in Yonkers on Feb. 4, 1994. Dozens of witnesses saw the fight, but none came forward out of fear of the gang to which DiSimone was alleged to have belonged, the Tanglewood Boys, a group that federal authorities said served as a proving ground for future Mafia members.
DiSimone disappeared after the killing. Following an international manhunt, he walked into a Yonkers police precinct Nov. 9, 1999, and surrendered. He was convicted of murder in October 2000 and sentenced to 25 years to life.
If there is a second trial, Jeffrey Balancio said, he believes the case against DiSimone, now 40, could be more convincing this time.
"Maybe people now will be less intimidated by the gang that ruled the neighborhood then and we'll have even stronger evidence," he said.
Fuereisen, DiSimone's lawyer, will argue that there shouldn't be a second trial when he submits papers to Brieant later this month. Westchester prosecutors are expected to ask Brieant for a new trial in state Supreme Court when they reply next month.
Jeffrey Balancio said he and his wife have as much faith in DiFiore's office as they did in former District Attorney Jeanine Pirro. But he said that faith doesn't lessen the pain of this latest turn in the saga.
"Time doesn't heal all wounds," he said. "Sometimes it just gives others the opportunity to pick at the scabs."
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tppoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Feds investigate lawyer in theft from client accounts
Friday, December 8, 2006
Feds investigate lawyer in theft from client accounts
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
WHITE PLAINS - Federal authorities are investigating a real estate lawyer suspected of stealing cash from client accounts.
The FBI's White Plains office and the U.S. Attorney's Office have been looking into Anthony Bellettieri, 53, of Pleasantville for about a month in connection with a theft of funds from his clients' escrow accounts, law enforcement sources said. Bellettieri is a founding partner in the firm of Bellettieri, Fonte, and Laudonio, which has offices on West Red Oak Lane in Harrison and Huntington Station on Long Island.
The Westchester County District Attorney's Office also has received complaints about Bellettieri's firm, but those complaints came after federal investigators had already executed search warrants, authorities said.
Murray Richman, Bellettieri's lawyer, said, "Indeed we are aware of an investigation and are desirous of cooperating in that investigation." Richman declined to comment further.
Neal Comer, a lawyer representing Bellettieri's partners at the firm, would not discuss details of the case, but said his clients had done nothing wrong.
"I've investigated this case extensively," Comer said. "Robert Fonte and Tara Laudonio are quite innocent of any wrongdoing and are victims."
Norman Heller, a lawyer who represented a seller from Florida in a transaction with one of Bellettieri's clients, said yesterday that three checks from the buyer's Chase Bank escrow account bounced after a real estate closing Nov. 17. Two checks were to Heller's client and one was for Heller's fees, he said. When he called Bellettieri, Heller said, the lawyer told him he would send another check. When that check arrived drawn on an account from a different bank, Heller said he knew something was wrong.
He called Bellettieri's firm and sent faxes demanding to know why the check was not drawn on the buyer's escrow account. He said he received no answer.
"After that, all hell broke loose," he said. "I filed my complaints with all the appropriate parties."
Heller, who declined to say how much money was involved in the transaction, said he complained to the District Attorney's Office and the Grievance Committee for the 9th Judicial District in White Plains. He said he was told by the District Attorney's Office that the case was being investigated by federal prosecutors. He spoke earlier this week with Assistant U.S. Attorney Cynthia Keefe Dunne, the prosecutor in the case.
"They did let me know they're looking into the firm," he said.
Herbert Hadad, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, declined to comment.
Bellettieri was admitted to the bar in New York in 1979, according to state records. He received his law degree from New York Law School and his bachelor's from Fordham University, according to the Web site for Bankers Integration Group Inc., a financing software company for which Bellettieri has served as a director.
Heller said he has done "two or three" other real estate deals with Bellettieri's firm over the years without any problems.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Staff writer Jonathan Bandler contributed to this report.
Feds investigate lawyer in theft from client accounts
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
WHITE PLAINS - Federal authorities are investigating a real estate lawyer suspected of stealing cash from client accounts.
The FBI's White Plains office and the U.S. Attorney's Office have been looking into Anthony Bellettieri, 53, of Pleasantville for about a month in connection with a theft of funds from his clients' escrow accounts, law enforcement sources said. Bellettieri is a founding partner in the firm of Bellettieri, Fonte, and Laudonio, which has offices on West Red Oak Lane in Harrison and Huntington Station on Long Island.
The Westchester County District Attorney's Office also has received complaints about Bellettieri's firm, but those complaints came after federal investigators had already executed search warrants, authorities said.
Murray Richman, Bellettieri's lawyer, said, "Indeed we are aware of an investigation and are desirous of cooperating in that investigation." Richman declined to comment further.
Neal Comer, a lawyer representing Bellettieri's partners at the firm, would not discuss details of the case, but said his clients had done nothing wrong.
"I've investigated this case extensively," Comer said. "Robert Fonte and Tara Laudonio are quite innocent of any wrongdoing and are victims."
Norman Heller, a lawyer who represented a seller from Florida in a transaction with one of Bellettieri's clients, said yesterday that three checks from the buyer's Chase Bank escrow account bounced after a real estate closing Nov. 17. Two checks were to Heller's client and one was for Heller's fees, he said. When he called Bellettieri, Heller said, the lawyer told him he would send another check. When that check arrived drawn on an account from a different bank, Heller said he knew something was wrong.
He called Bellettieri's firm and sent faxes demanding to know why the check was not drawn on the buyer's escrow account. He said he received no answer.
"After that, all hell broke loose," he said. "I filed my complaints with all the appropriate parties."
Heller, who declined to say how much money was involved in the transaction, said he complained to the District Attorney's Office and the Grievance Committee for the 9th Judicial District in White Plains. He said he was told by the District Attorney's Office that the case was being investigated by federal prosecutors. He spoke earlier this week with Assistant U.S. Attorney Cynthia Keefe Dunne, the prosecutor in the case.
"They did let me know they're looking into the firm," he said.
Herbert Hadad, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, declined to comment.
Bellettieri was admitted to the bar in New York in 1979, according to state records. He received his law degree from New York Law School and his bachelor's from Fordham University, according to the Web site for Bankers Integration Group Inc., a financing software company for which Bellettieri has served as a director.
Heller said he has done "two or three" other real estate deals with Bellettieri's firm over the years without any problems.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Staff writer Jonathan Bandler contributed to this report.
Home sale victims tell of bounced checks from Harrison lawyer
Saturday, December 9, 2006
Home sale victims tell of bounced checks from Harrison lawyer
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
Lizette Santiago worked two jobs for a dozen years to pay the mortgage on her Queens home. The 41-year-old single mom used her earnings as a bookkeeper and waitress to build up equity in her Woodhaven home.
She put her house on the market earlier this year, looking to reap the rewards of her hard work as she settled her family permanently in Orlando, Fla.
She found a buyer and closed last month on the $678,400 sale. Her $286,000 mortgage was supposed to be paid off by funds from the buyer's side. Santiago got three checks totaling more than $323,000 at the Nov. 17 closing from the buyer's law firm, Bellettieri, Fonte and Laudonio, P.C.
But the checks to Santiago bounced, she said. The $286,000 check to her mortgage company bounced. The check to her lawyer bounced. Law enforcement sources said Anthony Bellettieri, the founding partner of the Harrison-based law firm, is being investigated in the theft of funds from clients' escrow accounts.
Instead of a tidy sum to help her family, which includes an infant granddaughter, start a new life in Florida, Santiago got nothing. The bank where she deposited the $300,000 in bad checks said she would be investigated for fraud. The mortgage company wants her to continue making the $1,900 a month payments on the home she no longer owns or it will take her to court.
"I have no money. I have no house," she said yesterday. "I have nothing."
Bellettieri's lawyer, Murray Richman, said Thursday that Bellettieri, 53, of Pleasantville, was "desirous of cooperating" in the investigation by the FBI's White Plains office and the U.S. Attorney's Office.
As to the latest allegations against Bellettieri, Richman said yesterday, "I do not have sufficient evidence to formulate a belief as to their charges."
Santiago's lawyer, Shakuntala Persaud, said she had closed a few real estate deals with Bellettieri's firm over her 16-year career and never had a problem before this.
"They had a good reputation, they've been around a long time," she said. "That's why this is so shocking."
Another person who dealt with Bellettieri recently said he, too, got stiffed in a house closing. Joe Martinez, a real estate agent in the Bronx, said he lost $10,000 in the wake of a closing Nov. 15 on a property in Middletown where Bellettieri's firm represented the bank. Martinez said his check bounced, his client's $20,000 check was no good, and the title company lost more than $100,000 through bad checks from Bellettieri.
"That was our first venture with them," he said. "And our last."
Santiago said she spoke yesterday to an FBI agent who is investigating the case. She said she was lucky that she had family to help her out as she struggles to come up with two months' mortgage for the two-family home in Queens and the $1,600 monthly payment on her Florida home.
"It's crazy," she said. "I just don't have the words to describe it."
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Home sale victims tell of bounced checks from Harrison lawyer
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
Lizette Santiago worked two jobs for a dozen years to pay the mortgage on her Queens home. The 41-year-old single mom used her earnings as a bookkeeper and waitress to build up equity in her Woodhaven home.
She put her house on the market earlier this year, looking to reap the rewards of her hard work as she settled her family permanently in Orlando, Fla.
She found a buyer and closed last month on the $678,400 sale. Her $286,000 mortgage was supposed to be paid off by funds from the buyer's side. Santiago got three checks totaling more than $323,000 at the Nov. 17 closing from the buyer's law firm, Bellettieri, Fonte and Laudonio, P.C.
But the checks to Santiago bounced, she said. The $286,000 check to her mortgage company bounced. The check to her lawyer bounced. Law enforcement sources said Anthony Bellettieri, the founding partner of the Harrison-based law firm, is being investigated in the theft of funds from clients' escrow accounts.
Instead of a tidy sum to help her family, which includes an infant granddaughter, start a new life in Florida, Santiago got nothing. The bank where she deposited the $300,000 in bad checks said she would be investigated for fraud. The mortgage company wants her to continue making the $1,900 a month payments on the home she no longer owns or it will take her to court.
"I have no money. I have no house," she said yesterday. "I have nothing."
Bellettieri's lawyer, Murray Richman, said Thursday that Bellettieri, 53, of Pleasantville, was "desirous of cooperating" in the investigation by the FBI's White Plains office and the U.S. Attorney's Office.
As to the latest allegations against Bellettieri, Richman said yesterday, "I do not have sufficient evidence to formulate a belief as to their charges."
Santiago's lawyer, Shakuntala Persaud, said she had closed a few real estate deals with Bellettieri's firm over her 16-year career and never had a problem before this.
"They had a good reputation, they've been around a long time," she said. "That's why this is so shocking."
Another person who dealt with Bellettieri recently said he, too, got stiffed in a house closing. Joe Martinez, a real estate agent in the Bronx, said he lost $10,000 in the wake of a closing Nov. 15 on a property in Middletown where Bellettieri's firm represented the bank. Martinez said his check bounced, his client's $20,000 check was no good, and the title company lost more than $100,000 through bad checks from Bellettieri.
"That was our first venture with them," he said. "And our last."
Santiago said she spoke yesterday to an FBI agent who is investigating the case. She said she was lucky that she had family to help her out as she struggles to come up with two months' mortgage for the two-family home in Queens and the $1,600 monthly payment on her Florida home.
"It's crazy," she said. "I just don't have the words to describe it."
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Reputed 'Mob Muscle' admits role in trash scheme
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Reputed 'Mob Muscle' admits role in trash scheme
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The reputed mob muscle in the plot to illegally carve up trash territory in Connecticut and the Lower Hudson Valley has pleaded guilty in the case.
Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello, accused of being the former boss of the Genovese crime family, pleaded guilty yesterday to racketeering conspiracy and tax evasion in U.S. District Court in New Haven. He is likely to face up to 30 months in prison when he is sentenced in March.
Ianniello, 86, from Old Westbury, Long Island, was one of 29 people indicted in June in connection with the so-called "property rights" scheme that federal prosecutors say dates back to the 1960s.
Its current incarnation was alleged to be headed by New Fairfield trash magnate James Galante and his accused silent partner, Thomas Milo of Mamaroneck.
The town of Southeast recently renewed its municipal carting contract with a company owned by Galante.
The scheme was designed to eliminate competition in the lucrative, but often seamy, trash-hauling industry in Connecticut and Putnam and Westchester counties. Participating carters divided up territory and agreed not to bid against one another for contracts, federal prosecutors said.
To enforce the plot, it is alleged, Galante and Milo turned to Ianniello to provide the implicit threat of mob violence. Ianniello received a quarterly "mob tax" payment of $30,000, resulting in $120,000 a year in income that he did not report on his tax returns.
During an 18-month investigation, FBI agents uncovered evidence of Ianniello's involvement in the plot through a wiretap. Federal prosecutors also said that a document seized from an office of one of Ianniello's co-defendants in July 2005 revealed cash payments to the reputed former acting boss of the Genoveses, a group authorities have described as the most powerful of the Five Families of New York's mafia.
FBI agents raided Galante's offices in July 2005 as well as those of Thomas Milo. Agents also searched the offices of Putnam County Executive Robert Bondi, who was not charged in the case and has said his office cooperated fully with the FBI.
Ianniello evaded nearly $140,000 in federal taxes in the years 2001 through 2004, federal prosecutors said. He has agreed to pay taxes and penalties in excess of $277,000 and forfeit more than $130,000 that was seized from his house in July 2005.
Ianniello is awaiting sentencing in New York after pleading guilty to racketeering in a case where he was accused of helping infiltrate a bus drivers union. His lawyers did not return calls seeking comment.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Reputed 'Mob Muscle' admits role in trash scheme
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The reputed mob muscle in the plot to illegally carve up trash territory in Connecticut and the Lower Hudson Valley has pleaded guilty in the case.
Matthew "Matty the Horse" Ianniello, accused of being the former boss of the Genovese crime family, pleaded guilty yesterday to racketeering conspiracy and tax evasion in U.S. District Court in New Haven. He is likely to face up to 30 months in prison when he is sentenced in March.
Ianniello, 86, from Old Westbury, Long Island, was one of 29 people indicted in June in connection with the so-called "property rights" scheme that federal prosecutors say dates back to the 1960s.
Its current incarnation was alleged to be headed by New Fairfield trash magnate James Galante and his accused silent partner, Thomas Milo of Mamaroneck.
The town of Southeast recently renewed its municipal carting contract with a company owned by Galante.
The scheme was designed to eliminate competition in the lucrative, but often seamy, trash-hauling industry in Connecticut and Putnam and Westchester counties. Participating carters divided up territory and agreed not to bid against one another for contracts, federal prosecutors said.
To enforce the plot, it is alleged, Galante and Milo turned to Ianniello to provide the implicit threat of mob violence. Ianniello received a quarterly "mob tax" payment of $30,000, resulting in $120,000 a year in income that he did not report on his tax returns.
During an 18-month investigation, FBI agents uncovered evidence of Ianniello's involvement in the plot through a wiretap. Federal prosecutors also said that a document seized from an office of one of Ianniello's co-defendants in July 2005 revealed cash payments to the reputed former acting boss of the Genoveses, a group authorities have described as the most powerful of the Five Families of New York's mafia.
FBI agents raided Galante's offices in July 2005 as well as those of Thomas Milo. Agents also searched the offices of Putnam County Executive Robert Bondi, who was not charged in the case and has said his office cooperated fully with the FBI.
Ianniello evaded nearly $140,000 in federal taxes in the years 2001 through 2004, federal prosecutors said. He has agreed to pay taxes and penalties in excess of $277,000 and forfeit more than $130,000 that was seized from his house in July 2005.
Ianniello is awaiting sentencing in New York after pleading guilty to racketeering in a case where he was accused of helping infiltrate a bus drivers union. His lawyers did not return calls seeking comment.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Bank sues, alleging Westchester lawyer stole $17 million
Friday, January 5, 2007
Bank sues, alleging Westchester lawyer stole $17 million
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
WHITE PLAINS - A printing error on bank checks may have opened the door to an alleged $17 million check-kiting scheme by a Harrison real-estate lawyer, according to court papers filed in a civil lawsuit.
The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office are continuing their criminal investigation of Anthony Bellettieri, 53, of Pleasantville, the founding partner of the firm Bellettieri, Fonte and Laudonio P.C. Herbert Hadad, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, declined to comment.
The bank that handled the firm's accounts lays out the alleged scheme in a civil suit filed against Bellettieri and his firm in U.S. District Court in White Plains. J.P. Morgan Chase filed suit late in December, charging that Bellettieri overdrew the firm's accounts by $17 million between April 2005 and November 2006, and that he used a check-printing error to make it appear that one account was flush when it really was empty.
Murray Richman, Bellettieri's lawyer in the criminal investigation, declined to comment on the civil allegations. But he said he had been in contact with federal authorities investigating the case.
Neal Comer, the lawyer representing Bellettieri's partners - Robert Fonte and Tara Anne Laudonio - said his clients were victims in the case and have spoken to the FBI.
"He took elaborate steps to hide from them and everyone else what he was doing," Comer said.
Bellettieri at first blamed the overdraft on J.P. Morgan, but later admitted he was responsible to repay it, according to court papers filed by the bank's lawyers.
According to the suit, mortgage lenders wired funds into the firm's J.P. Morgan Chase accounts. Bellettieri paid the sellers from those accounts.
But Bellettieri had been using those accounts to take advantage of misprinted checks, the suit charges. One account, a funding account, was used to pay out checks drawn on a disbursement account. The two accounts were processed through different federal reserve banks. But the routing number printed on the disbursement account checks incorrectly gave the impression that they were processed through the same federal reserve bank.
Bellettieri wrote between $15 and $18 million a day worth of checks drawn on the disbursement account and deposited them in the funding account, the lawsuit says. Because of the printing error, J.P. Morgan Chase made the funds available the day the checks were deposited. But there was actually a two- to three-day lag because the two accounts were processed through different federal banks. The money in the funding account should have become available two days after deposit, just as the checks drawn on the disbursement account came due, making for zero-sum transactions.
The lag time created a two-day window where the firm appeared to have more than $15 million in its funding account when, in fact, it had nothing. Bellettieri's firm repeated the cycle every day, according to the suit.
In November, new checks were issued to the firm with the correct routing numbers. That eliminated the two-day window.
Checks to sellers promptly started bouncing, the bank says.
The FBI started investigating shortly after that.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Bank sues, alleging Westchester lawyer stole $17 million
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
WHITE PLAINS - A printing error on bank checks may have opened the door to an alleged $17 million check-kiting scheme by a Harrison real-estate lawyer, according to court papers filed in a civil lawsuit.
The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office are continuing their criminal investigation of Anthony Bellettieri, 53, of Pleasantville, the founding partner of the firm Bellettieri, Fonte and Laudonio P.C. Herbert Hadad, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, declined to comment.
The bank that handled the firm's accounts lays out the alleged scheme in a civil suit filed against Bellettieri and his firm in U.S. District Court in White Plains. J.P. Morgan Chase filed suit late in December, charging that Bellettieri overdrew the firm's accounts by $17 million between April 2005 and November 2006, and that he used a check-printing error to make it appear that one account was flush when it really was empty.
Murray Richman, Bellettieri's lawyer in the criminal investigation, declined to comment on the civil allegations. But he said he had been in contact with federal authorities investigating the case.
Neal Comer, the lawyer representing Bellettieri's partners - Robert Fonte and Tara Anne Laudonio - said his clients were victims in the case and have spoken to the FBI.
"He took elaborate steps to hide from them and everyone else what he was doing," Comer said.
Bellettieri at first blamed the overdraft on J.P. Morgan, but later admitted he was responsible to repay it, according to court papers filed by the bank's lawyers.
According to the suit, mortgage lenders wired funds into the firm's J.P. Morgan Chase accounts. Bellettieri paid the sellers from those accounts.
But Bellettieri had been using those accounts to take advantage of misprinted checks, the suit charges. One account, a funding account, was used to pay out checks drawn on a disbursement account. The two accounts were processed through different federal reserve banks. But the routing number printed on the disbursement account checks incorrectly gave the impression that they were processed through the same federal reserve bank.
Bellettieri wrote between $15 and $18 million a day worth of checks drawn on the disbursement account and deposited them in the funding account, the lawsuit says. Because of the printing error, J.P. Morgan Chase made the funds available the day the checks were deposited. But there was actually a two- to three-day lag because the two accounts were processed through different federal banks. The money in the funding account should have become available two days after deposit, just as the checks drawn on the disbursement account came due, making for zero-sum transactions.
The lag time created a two-day window where the firm appeared to have more than $15 million in its funding account when, in fact, it had nothing. Bellettieri's firm repeated the cycle every day, according to the suit.
In November, new checks were issued to the firm with the correct routing numbers. That eliminated the two-day window.
Checks to sellers promptly started bouncing, the bank says.
The FBI started investigating shortly after that.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Slain Yonkers doctor hailed as a man of peace
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
Slain Yonkers doctor hailed as a man of peace
NEW YORK - The announcement that Yonkers police had arrested a suspect in the slaying of Dr. Leandro Lozada did little to quell the fears of mourners at the pediatrician's memorial service last night.
As a young man wearing wraparound sunglasses and carrying a small cardboard box approached the doctor's casket, some people in the packed R.G. Ortiz Funeral Home in Washington Heights thought he might be carrying a gun.
That was enough to spark a near stampede. More than 200 family members, friends, patients and colleagues of Lozada knocked over chairs, floral arrangements and one another scrambling to get to the exit to Broadway.
But there was no gun. The young man, whom Lozada's son Joel later described as "an eccentric man," was escorted out of the funeral home, spoken to by police and told not to come back.
Joel Lozada went throughout the funeral home speaking to the overflow crowd in English and Spanish, telling the mourners there was no need to panic.
"Please, I know this is difficult. I know this is all hard," he said. "But this is my father's legacy. We must have peace, we must have order. We are all safe here, I assure you."
The peace he spoke of was a mainstay of Leandro Lozada's life, friends and colleagues said yesterday. That was why there was such shock that a man who had photos of Gandhi and Mother Teresa on the wall behind the desk in his Bronx medical office would meet such a violent end, shot dead in his own home, allegedly by the home's former owner.
"He was an old-time physician," said his longtime friend and personal physician, Dr. Jose Goris. "He cared about his patients. He cared about his community."
The 46-year-old pediatrician seemed happy in his life, professionally with a thriving practice and personally with a girlfriend who is a pediatric surgeon at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, friends said.
"This was a man of the heart," said Joan O'Brien, a pharmaceutical sales representative from Pelham Manor who knew Lozada for nearly a decade. "He was a man of extreme ethics, extreme intellect and extreme kindness."
Doctors, poor mothers and small children all approached the open casket at the front of the funeral home, wiping tears from their eyes. Many reached down to touch the doctor's body. Several broke down after offering condolences to his family members and passing the large photo of Lozada smiling with a stethoscope and Looney Tunes tie around his neck.
Friends and colleagues said Lozada never mentioned Samuel Saunders, who has been charged with his killing. He never seemed threatened by anyone or spoke of being afraid, Goris said.
"I hope whoever did this, they suffer on Earth for what they took away," he said.
Lozada spoke of retiring in five years and moving back to his native Dominican Republic to offer his medical services in the poorer communities there, O'Brien said. Now, after today's services at the funeral home, his body will be flown home to the Dominican Republic for burial.
"A light has been taken away from a lot of people," O'Brien said.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
Slain Yonkers doctor hailed as a man of peace
NEW YORK - The announcement that Yonkers police had arrested a suspect in the slaying of Dr. Leandro Lozada did little to quell the fears of mourners at the pediatrician's memorial service last night.
As a young man wearing wraparound sunglasses and carrying a small cardboard box approached the doctor's casket, some people in the packed R.G. Ortiz Funeral Home in Washington Heights thought he might be carrying a gun.
That was enough to spark a near stampede. More than 200 family members, friends, patients and colleagues of Lozada knocked over chairs, floral arrangements and one another scrambling to get to the exit to Broadway.
But there was no gun. The young man, whom Lozada's son Joel later described as "an eccentric man," was escorted out of the funeral home, spoken to by police and told not to come back.
Joel Lozada went throughout the funeral home speaking to the overflow crowd in English and Spanish, telling the mourners there was no need to panic.
"Please, I know this is difficult. I know this is all hard," he said. "But this is my father's legacy. We must have peace, we must have order. We are all safe here, I assure you."
The peace he spoke of was a mainstay of Leandro Lozada's life, friends and colleagues said yesterday. That was why there was such shock that a man who had photos of Gandhi and Mother Teresa on the wall behind the desk in his Bronx medical office would meet such a violent end, shot dead in his own home, allegedly by the home's former owner.
"He was an old-time physician," said his longtime friend and personal physician, Dr. Jose Goris. "He cared about his patients. He cared about his community."
The 46-year-old pediatrician seemed happy in his life, professionally with a thriving practice and personally with a girlfriend who is a pediatric surgeon at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, friends said.
"This was a man of the heart," said Joan O'Brien, a pharmaceutical sales representative from Pelham Manor who knew Lozada for nearly a decade. "He was a man of extreme ethics, extreme intellect and extreme kindness."
Doctors, poor mothers and small children all approached the open casket at the front of the funeral home, wiping tears from their eyes. Many reached down to touch the doctor's body. Several broke down after offering condolences to his family members and passing the large photo of Lozada smiling with a stethoscope and Looney Tunes tie around his neck.
Friends and colleagues said Lozada never mentioned Samuel Saunders, who has been charged with his killing. He never seemed threatened by anyone or spoke of being afraid, Goris said.
"I hope whoever did this, they suffer on Earth for what they took away," he said.
Lozada spoke of retiring in five years and moving back to his native Dominican Republic to offer his medical services in the poorer communities there, O'Brien said. Now, after today's services at the funeral home, his body will be flown home to the Dominican Republic for burial.
"A light has been taken away from a lot of people," O'Brien said.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Mamaroneck banker can use spy defense at trial
Friday, January 26, 2007
Mamaroneck banker can use spy defense at trial
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
A Mamaroneck businessman can claim he was working as a U.S. spy in a case where he is accused of securing tens of millions of dollars in bribes for the leader of an oil-rich former Soviet republic, a federal appeals court has ruled.
James Giffen, 65, is charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act during his time as a counselor to Nursultan Nazar-baev, the president of Kazakhstan. He was indicted more than three years ago by a federal grand jury in Manhattan on charges of money laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax offenses.
Federal prosecutors charge that Giffen went to elaborate lengths to disguise the bribery scheme, in which he allegedly funneled more than $80 million to Kazakh officials between 1995 and 1999. He is accused of creating Swiss bank accounts, paying tuition at exclusive boarding schools for family members of Kazakh officials, and buying millions of dollars in jewelry. But his case has stalled while defense lawyers and federal prosecutors have sparred over Giffen's efforts to claim he was actually working for the CIA and the State Department in Kazakhstan and that U.S. officials were aware of his activities.
A federal judge has ordered many of the documents in the case be filed under seal based on the inclusion of classified information. Giffen wants to use that classified information at his trial to back up his claims. The government has opposed the revelation of classified information.
Judge William Pauley ruled Giffen could make what is called a "public authority" defense. Federal prosecutors appealed. In a decision filed this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals said it lacked jurisdiction to sustain the government's appeal.
Giffen was described as "Mr. Kazakhstan" by former CIA field operative Robert Baer in his book "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism." He wrote that Giffen, through his company, Mercator Corp., held the "keys to the kingdom" for oil companies wishing to do business in the oil-drenched Asian nation. In the fictionalized film version of the book, "Syriana," there is a character who closely resembles Baer's description of Giffen.
But Giffen maintains he did spy work for the U.S. for decades. In court papers, he claims to have worked as an unofficial conduit between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He said he was regularly debriefed by U.S. officials and told them about the Swiss bank accounts as early as late 1995.
The huge, untapped Tengiz oil field in Kazakhstan was regarded as a viable hedge against Middle Eastern hegemony in the oil trade. Giffen claims he told U.S. officials all about the bribe schemes involving U.S. oil companies anxious to do business in Tengiz.
Lawyers for Giffen could not be reached for comment.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Mamaroneck banker can use spy defense at trial
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
A Mamaroneck businessman can claim he was working as a U.S. spy in a case where he is accused of securing tens of millions of dollars in bribes for the leader of an oil-rich former Soviet republic, a federal appeals court has ruled.
James Giffen, 65, is charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act during his time as a counselor to Nursultan Nazar-baev, the president of Kazakhstan. He was indicted more than three years ago by a federal grand jury in Manhattan on charges of money laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax offenses.
Federal prosecutors charge that Giffen went to elaborate lengths to disguise the bribery scheme, in which he allegedly funneled more than $80 million to Kazakh officials between 1995 and 1999. He is accused of creating Swiss bank accounts, paying tuition at exclusive boarding schools for family members of Kazakh officials, and buying millions of dollars in jewelry. But his case has stalled while defense lawyers and federal prosecutors have sparred over Giffen's efforts to claim he was actually working for the CIA and the State Department in Kazakhstan and that U.S. officials were aware of his activities.
A federal judge has ordered many of the documents in the case be filed under seal based on the inclusion of classified information. Giffen wants to use that classified information at his trial to back up his claims. The government has opposed the revelation of classified information.
Judge William Pauley ruled Giffen could make what is called a "public authority" defense. Federal prosecutors appealed. In a decision filed this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals said it lacked jurisdiction to sustain the government's appeal.
Giffen was described as "Mr. Kazakhstan" by former CIA field operative Robert Baer in his book "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism." He wrote that Giffen, through his company, Mercator Corp., held the "keys to the kingdom" for oil companies wishing to do business in the oil-drenched Asian nation. In the fictionalized film version of the book, "Syriana," there is a character who closely resembles Baer's description of Giffen.
But Giffen maintains he did spy work for the U.S. for decades. In court papers, he claims to have worked as an unofficial conduit between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He said he was regularly debriefed by U.S. officials and told them about the Swiss bank accounts as early as late 1995.
The huge, untapped Tengiz oil field in Kazakhstan was regarded as a viable hedge against Middle Eastern hegemony in the oil trade. Giffen claims he told U.S. officials all about the bribe schemes involving U.S. oil companies anxious to do business in Tengiz.
Lawyers for Giffen could not be reached for comment.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
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.
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.
Pleasantville lawyer admits stealing $20 million
Friday, February 16, 2007
Pleasantville lawyer admits stealing $20 million
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
WHITE PLAINS - A real estate lawyer stole more than $20 million from clients and banks, spending lavishly on vacation condos, home improvements and new cars.
Anthony Bellettieri, 53, of Pleasantville pleaded guilty yesterday in U.S. District Court in White Plains to one count of bank fraud and one count of mail fraud. By statute, he faces up to 50 years in prison. But a plea agreement he signed with federal prosecutors yesterday calls for a likely sentencing range of 10 years and one month to 12 years and seven months. Bellettieri also agreed to pay up to $22 million in restitution to those he ripped off from 2003 until November last year.
Bellettieri has been under investigation by the FBI's White Plains office since November. He apparently cooperated with the investigation from its early stages.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Cynthia Keefe Dunne said Bellettieri and his lawyer, Murray Richman, met several times with federal investigators.
"Mr. Bellettieri has actually been cooperating with us in trying to resolve this expeditiously," she said.
Bellettieri, the founding partner of the firm Bellettieri, Fonte and Laudonio, stole most of the money through a classic con known as a "check kite" scheme. He siphoned money from the firm's escrow account, writing checks on a second account to cover the losses from the escrow account.
J.P. Morgan Chase, the principal victim in the case, said in a civil lawsuit that Bellettieri used an error on printed checks to facilitate the scheme. It came crashing down in November after the bank issued new checks with correct information.
"It was brought to a screeching halt by the main victim," Dunne said during Bellettieri's hearing yesterday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith.
Dunne ticked off the list of ways Bellettieri used the stolen money: He paid for a new swimming pool at his family's home at 9 Crestview Drive. He got a kitchen extension in the home. He paid for a family wedding. He paid high salaries of the staff of the law firm, salaries that were far in excess of what the firm was bringing in. He bought a condo in Aruba and another in Miami Beach. He paid credit card debts for himself and others. He bought commercial property in the Bronx.
As part of his guilty plea, Bellettieri agreed to forfeit all the properties he bought and his half of the family home.
In addition to the check-kiting scheme that netted more than $20 million, Bellettieri also persuaded a client to invest nearly $2 million in private mortgages that he claimed the firm held for other clients. In fact, there were no such mortgages. He mailed phony mortgage documents to the victim, deposited the funds in the firm's accounts, and used the funds for himself.
Dressed in a houndstooth check sport jacket and black dress pants, Bellettieri calmly pleaded guilty.
When Smith asked him to explain what he did, he sounded very much like a lawyer.
"Over the last number of years, I was covering overdrafts in our mortgage closing accounts," he said. "I wrote checks out of a controlled disbursement account and deposited it in our funding account."
Bellettieri was released after signing a $500,000 bond. He is scheduled to be sentenced May 18 by U.S. District Judge Charles Brieant. Richman, his lawyer, said Bellettieri would not comment on the case.
Richman said Bellettieri started "robbing Peter to pay Paul" once the check kite scheme started.
"It started to steamroll. Once you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound," he said. "It's a terrible thing to see a man destroyed and humbled by his own actions and lose control of his life."
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Pleasantville lawyer admits stealing $20 million
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
WHITE PLAINS - A real estate lawyer stole more than $20 million from clients and banks, spending lavishly on vacation condos, home improvements and new cars.
Anthony Bellettieri, 53, of Pleasantville pleaded guilty yesterday in U.S. District Court in White Plains to one count of bank fraud and one count of mail fraud. By statute, he faces up to 50 years in prison. But a plea agreement he signed with federal prosecutors yesterday calls for a likely sentencing range of 10 years and one month to 12 years and seven months. Bellettieri also agreed to pay up to $22 million in restitution to those he ripped off from 2003 until November last year.
Bellettieri has been under investigation by the FBI's White Plains office since November. He apparently cooperated with the investigation from its early stages.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Cynthia Keefe Dunne said Bellettieri and his lawyer, Murray Richman, met several times with federal investigators.
"Mr. Bellettieri has actually been cooperating with us in trying to resolve this expeditiously," she said.
Bellettieri, the founding partner of the firm Bellettieri, Fonte and Laudonio, stole most of the money through a classic con known as a "check kite" scheme. He siphoned money from the firm's escrow account, writing checks on a second account to cover the losses from the escrow account.
J.P. Morgan Chase, the principal victim in the case, said in a civil lawsuit that Bellettieri used an error on printed checks to facilitate the scheme. It came crashing down in November after the bank issued new checks with correct information.
"It was brought to a screeching halt by the main victim," Dunne said during Bellettieri's hearing yesterday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith.
Dunne ticked off the list of ways Bellettieri used the stolen money: He paid for a new swimming pool at his family's home at 9 Crestview Drive. He got a kitchen extension in the home. He paid for a family wedding. He paid high salaries of the staff of the law firm, salaries that were far in excess of what the firm was bringing in. He bought a condo in Aruba and another in Miami Beach. He paid credit card debts for himself and others. He bought commercial property in the Bronx.
As part of his guilty plea, Bellettieri agreed to forfeit all the properties he bought and his half of the family home.
In addition to the check-kiting scheme that netted more than $20 million, Bellettieri also persuaded a client to invest nearly $2 million in private mortgages that he claimed the firm held for other clients. In fact, there were no such mortgages. He mailed phony mortgage documents to the victim, deposited the funds in the firm's accounts, and used the funds for himself.
Dressed in a houndstooth check sport jacket and black dress pants, Bellettieri calmly pleaded guilty.
When Smith asked him to explain what he did, he sounded very much like a lawyer.
"Over the last number of years, I was covering overdrafts in our mortgage closing accounts," he said. "I wrote checks out of a controlled disbursement account and deposited it in our funding account."
Bellettieri was released after signing a $500,000 bond. He is scheduled to be sentenced May 18 by U.S. District Judge Charles Brieant. Richman, his lawyer, said Bellettieri would not comment on the case.
Richman said Bellettieri started "robbing Peter to pay Paul" once the check kite scheme started.
"It started to steamroll. Once you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound," he said. "It's a terrible thing to see a man destroyed and humbled by his own actions and lose control of his life."
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Ardsley businessman accused of aiding terrorists
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Ardsley businessman accused of aiding terrorists
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
NEW YORK - An Ardsley businessman was accused yesterday of trying to funnel $152,000 to terrorists for night vision goggles at a training camp in Afghanistan.
Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, 53, of 472 Ashford Ave. was arrested in New York City by agents with the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the FBI and New York City Police Department. An indictment was unsealed yesterday in U.S. District Court in New York charging Alishtari, who claims to be a banker, with financing terrorism, material support of terrorism, money laundering, wire fraud and conspiracy.
Federal prosecutors accuse Alishtari of accepting a payment to transfer $152,000 for an unidentified party with the understanding that the money was going to be used to fund terrorist training in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Alishtari also is accused of scamming millions of dollars from investors through a phony loan investment program called "Flat Electronic Data Interchange."
A woman who answered the phone at Alishtari's home yesterday and identified herself as his wife cried when informed of the charges against her husband. She said she last saw him Thursday when he left in a cab for a business meeting. FBI agents later raided the family's home, she said, without telling her why they were there.
"My husband is innocent," she said and declined further comment.
On his blog and on an MSN group titled "atalishtarispeeches," Alishtari calls himself a "conservative Republican" and a "Reagan Republican" devoted to peace, dedicated to halting child slavery as well as "Internet fraud, violence and online scams hurting innocent children, women, and families so help me God."
He blames past problems with Flat Electronic Data Interchange, which has an office in the Bronx, on an unnamed convicted financial fraud artist. Alishtari says he now heads a company called IDPixie LLC that purports to offer identity theft protection solutions. He also claims to be a two-time recipient of the National Republican Congressional Committee's New York state Businessman of the Year award. He says he founded the Global Peace Film Festival. Efforts to reach Nina Streich, the festival's director, were unsuccessful.
Federal authorities released few details about how the case against Alishtari started. The indictment makes no mention of an undercover operative or a cooperating witness. It is unclear whether the case was based on a sting operation.
The indictment charges that Alishtari arranged for the transfer of $152,000 in funds that "he believed were being sent to Pakistan and Afghanistan to be used to support a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan." He is accused of transferring $25,000 from a bank account in New York to one in Montreal as part of the scheme.
Alishtari was arraigned before a federal magistrate in Manhattan and ordered held without bail. He faces up to 95 years in prison if convicted. His lawyer, David Greenfield, did not return calls seeking comment.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
The charges
Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, 53, of Ardsley pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to an indictment accusing him of financing terrorism, material support of terrorism and other charges. The charges carry a potential penalty of 95 years in prison.
Ardsley businessman accused of aiding terrorists
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
NEW YORK - An Ardsley businessman was accused yesterday of trying to funnel $152,000 to terrorists for night vision goggles at a training camp in Afghanistan.
Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, 53, of 472 Ashford Ave. was arrested in New York City by agents with the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the FBI and New York City Police Department. An indictment was unsealed yesterday in U.S. District Court in New York charging Alishtari, who claims to be a banker, with financing terrorism, material support of terrorism, money laundering, wire fraud and conspiracy.
Federal prosecutors accuse Alishtari of accepting a payment to transfer $152,000 for an unidentified party with the understanding that the money was going to be used to fund terrorist training in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Alishtari also is accused of scamming millions of dollars from investors through a phony loan investment program called "Flat Electronic Data Interchange."
A woman who answered the phone at Alishtari's home yesterday and identified herself as his wife cried when informed of the charges against her husband. She said she last saw him Thursday when he left in a cab for a business meeting. FBI agents later raided the family's home, she said, without telling her why they were there.
"My husband is innocent," she said and declined further comment.
On his blog and on an MSN group titled "atalishtarispeeches," Alishtari calls himself a "conservative Republican" and a "Reagan Republican" devoted to peace, dedicated to halting child slavery as well as "Internet fraud, violence and online scams hurting innocent children, women, and families so help me God."
He blames past problems with Flat Electronic Data Interchange, which has an office in the Bronx, on an unnamed convicted financial fraud artist. Alishtari says he now heads a company called IDPixie LLC that purports to offer identity theft protection solutions. He also claims to be a two-time recipient of the National Republican Congressional Committee's New York state Businessman of the Year award. He says he founded the Global Peace Film Festival. Efforts to reach Nina Streich, the festival's director, were unsuccessful.
Federal authorities released few details about how the case against Alishtari started. The indictment makes no mention of an undercover operative or a cooperating witness. It is unclear whether the case was based on a sting operation.
The indictment charges that Alishtari arranged for the transfer of $152,000 in funds that "he believed were being sent to Pakistan and Afghanistan to be used to support a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan." He is accused of transferring $25,000 from a bank account in New York to one in Montreal as part of the scheme.
Alishtari was arraigned before a federal magistrate in Manhattan and ordered held without bail. He faces up to 95 years in prison if convicted. His lawyer, David Greenfield, did not return calls seeking comment.
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
The charges
Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, 53, of Ardsley pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to an indictment accusing him of financing terrorism, material support of terrorism and other charges. The charges carry a potential penalty of 95 years in prison.
Lawyer's victim would rather have knockout
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Lawyer's victim would rather have a knockout than have him in jail
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
Sixty-one-year-old George Balbes said he was glad the man who stole $160,000 from him was going to prison. But he would have been happier with a Bronx solution to the problem.
Balbes, who lives in Orange County but was raised on Gun Hill Road, wants to beat up real estate lawyer Anthony Bellettieri.
"The judge should have gave him to me, put him in the ring with me," Balbes said. "That would make me happy."
Bellettieri, 53, of Pleasantville, faces at least 10 years in federal prison when he is sentenced in May, after admitting Thursday that he stole more than $20 million from banks and real estate clients who did business with his Harrison-based firm, Bellettieri, Fonte and Laudonio. Bellettieri pleaded guilty to bank fraud and mail fraud. He admitted he stole the money between 2003 and November last year.
Federal prosecutors said he spent some of the money on the high life, buying vacation condos in Florida and Aruba, upgrading his family's home, paying for a family wedding, and leasing new cars. In addition, he paid high salaries to staffers of the law firm, far in excess of the firm's legitimate income.
While Bellettieri was living it up, Balbes was fighting off a lawsuit by the title company for the more than $120,000 in bounced checks from Bellettieri's firm after the sale of Balbes' Middletown home in November. He considered filing for bankruptcy. Now he says he plans to file papers with the Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection in Albany. The organization, funded by attorney registration fees, reimburses victims of lawyers' misdeeds up to $300,000.
The executive director of the fund, Timothy J. O'Sullivan, said in a recent interview that the fund pursues legal action against the offending lawyers to reimburse the fund.
In addition to prison, Bellettieri faces up to $22 million in restitution. It is unclear how much of that will remain outstanding after federal authorities seize and sell all his assets.
As part of his plea deal, Bellettieri agreed to surrender his financial interest in his family's home, several commercial properties and the condos in Aruba, Miami Beach and Las Vegas. In addition, he will have to give up several bank and investment accounts he and his wife, Antoinette, own. Also, several business debts owed to Bellettieri, some of them approaching $500,000, will be forfeited to the government for repayment to Bellettieri's victims.
But not all of Bellettieri's victims will be looking for reimbursement. John Svirsky, a mortgage broker from Garrison, said he had one client who lost nearly $1 million as a result of a bounced check from Bellettieri in December. But two banks involved in the deal, Chase and Wachovia, stepped in to make his client whole.
Svirsky, a mortgage broker for 26 years, said he had dealt with Bellettieri's firm for years without a hitch before the December deal. He praised Tara Laudonio, a partner in the firm, saying she was an excellent lawyer who was devastated by the recent turn of events.
Svirsky said he was shocked by Bellettieri's crimes, saying he knew and liked him, occasionally having lunch with him and another partner in the firm, Robert Fonte.
"They were the epitome of excellence," he said.
He said Bellettieri called him in December after news broke of the investigation by the FBI's White Plains office.
"He said, if any checks bounced, to just give him a call on his cell phone and redeposit them," he said. "Unfortunately, one did bounce. And when I called, he didn't answer."
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
Lawyer's victim would rather have a knockout than have him in jail
Timothy O'Connor
The Journal News
Sixty-one-year-old George Balbes said he was glad the man who stole $160,000 from him was going to prison. But he would have been happier with a Bronx solution to the problem.
Balbes, who lives in Orange County but was raised on Gun Hill Road, wants to beat up real estate lawyer Anthony Bellettieri.
"The judge should have gave him to me, put him in the ring with me," Balbes said. "That would make me happy."
Bellettieri, 53, of Pleasantville, faces at least 10 years in federal prison when he is sentenced in May, after admitting Thursday that he stole more than $20 million from banks and real estate clients who did business with his Harrison-based firm, Bellettieri, Fonte and Laudonio. Bellettieri pleaded guilty to bank fraud and mail fraud. He admitted he stole the money between 2003 and November last year.
Federal prosecutors said he spent some of the money on the high life, buying vacation condos in Florida and Aruba, upgrading his family's home, paying for a family wedding, and leasing new cars. In addition, he paid high salaries to staffers of the law firm, far in excess of the firm's legitimate income.
While Bellettieri was living it up, Balbes was fighting off a lawsuit by the title company for the more than $120,000 in bounced checks from Bellettieri's firm after the sale of Balbes' Middletown home in November. He considered filing for bankruptcy. Now he says he plans to file papers with the Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection in Albany. The organization, funded by attorney registration fees, reimburses victims of lawyers' misdeeds up to $300,000.
The executive director of the fund, Timothy J. O'Sullivan, said in a recent interview that the fund pursues legal action against the offending lawyers to reimburse the fund.
In addition to prison, Bellettieri faces up to $22 million in restitution. It is unclear how much of that will remain outstanding after federal authorities seize and sell all his assets.
As part of his plea deal, Bellettieri agreed to surrender his financial interest in his family's home, several commercial properties and the condos in Aruba, Miami Beach and Las Vegas. In addition, he will have to give up several bank and investment accounts he and his wife, Antoinette, own. Also, several business debts owed to Bellettieri, some of them approaching $500,000, will be forfeited to the government for repayment to Bellettieri's victims.
But not all of Bellettieri's victims will be looking for reimbursement. John Svirsky, a mortgage broker from Garrison, said he had one client who lost nearly $1 million as a result of a bounced check from Bellettieri in December. But two banks involved in the deal, Chase and Wachovia, stepped in to make his client whole.
Svirsky, a mortgage broker for 26 years, said he had dealt with Bellettieri's firm for years without a hitch before the December deal. He praised Tara Laudonio, a partner in the firm, saying she was an excellent lawyer who was devastated by the recent turn of events.
Svirsky said he was shocked by Bellettieri's crimes, saying he knew and liked him, occasionally having lunch with him and another partner in the firm, Robert Fonte.
"They were the epitome of excellence," he said.
He said Bellettieri called him in December after news broke of the investigation by the FBI's White Plains office.
"He said, if any checks bounced, to just give him a call on his cell phone and redeposit them," he said. "Unfortunately, one did bounce. And when I called, he didn't answer."
Reach Timothy O'Connor at tpoconnor@lohud.com or 914-694-3523.
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