SDNY Indicts Westchester Attorney for Attempting to Embezzle From Multimillion-Dollar Estate
U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of the Southern District of New York announced the charges against Guy Parisi, which include three counts in a scheme to defraud the decedent's son.
August 21, 2018 at 01:21 PM
5 minute read
A well-known Westchester County attorney was indicted on Tuesday for allegedly trying to embezzle funds from a decedent's estate of which he was the court-appointed administrator.
U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of the Southern District of New York announced the charges against Guy Parisi, which include three counts in a scheme to defraud the decedent's son.
Parisi was charged with one count of conspiracy, one count of mail fraud, and one count of making a false statement. The mail fraud charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The other two charges carry a maximum sentence of five years.
“Guy Parisi, a Westchester attorney, allegedly embezzled funds from an estate which he was a court-appointed fiduciary,” Berman said. “Parisi allegedly shirked his responsibilities to the estate in order to serve his own greed. Now he faces justice in a criminal court.”
Parisi is accused of forming an abandoned property location service with a relative to increase the maximum fee he was able to obtain from the estate's assets under state law. Using a location service allowed Parisi and the relative to obtain 15 percent of the estate's assets, which prosecutors said is higher than what Parisi would have collected as the administrator.
The estate belonged to an unnamed resident in Mount Vernon and was worth several million dollars, according to prosecutors. The resident died in 2000, but the estate was not presented to the Surrogate's Court until 2008. The assets had been in the custody of the state comptroller's office until then.
The decedent's son, the sole heir of the estate, retained Parisi to represent him in Surrogate's Court. The court appointed Parisi as the administrator of the estate in 2017 after the decedent's will was found and filed in 2015.
In June 2017, after being appointed administrator of the estate, Parisi and a relative formed Stokes Asset Recovery Services with a relative. The partnership was named after a street on which Parisi owned a vacation home, prosecutors said. They alleged Parisi formed the service specifically to obtain a higher share of the estate than he would have collected as the administrator.
Over the next week, Parisi's relative obtained an employer identification number from the IRS for Stokes, applied for a P.O. box, and filed a business certificate registration with the Westchester County clerk.
The relative then wrote in a letter to the comptroller less than two weeks after Stokes was created that the service would act as the agent of Parisi to claim the estate's assets held by the comptroller. Neither Parisi nor the relative disclosed their relationship to the comptroller's office, according to prosecutors.
The relative also included an agreement between Stokes and the estate, signed by Parisi as the administrator, which set the fee at 15 percent of the recovered funds. Prosecutors allege Parisi knew the estate was worth several million dollars at the time.
Over the next several months, Parisi contacted the comptroller's office repeatedly in an attempt to collect the estate's assets. He also reached out to an elected official in Westchester County and a former elected official in Suffolk County for help in collecting the funds.
In November 2017, Parisi was interviewed by a postal inspector as part of an investigation by a grand jury and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. According to prosecutors, he lied during the interview when he said he had worked with Stokes in the past and that the service's fee was only 5 percent.
Prosecutors claim Stokes was formed rapidly to allow Parisi and his relative to collect a fee of 15 percent, which would significantly reduce the amount collected by the decedent's son.
State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said in a statement that his office worked with federal prosecutors to bring the charges against Parisi.
“Instead of protecting the interests of the estate, Mr. Parisi abused the trust placed in him by allegedly attempting to pocket millions of dollars meant for the beneficiaries by using a fictitious company,” DiNapoli said. “Thanks to my ongoing partnerships with United States Attorney Geoffrey Berman and the United States Postal Inspection Service, he will now be held accountable for his actions.”
Parisi declined to comment on the charges when reached by phone on Tuesday. It's unclear who is representing him in the matter.
The case is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney James McMahon.
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