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.