Disbarred Orange County Attorney Is Sentenced to 7-Year Prison Term
Joseph Scali was found guilty in March 2018 on all 10 counts against him, including mail fraud, making false statements to the IRS, tax evasion and perjury.
March 06, 2019 at 04:25 PM
3 minute read
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Joseph Scali, the now-disbarred attorney convicted in March 2018 of a host of fraud claims, was sentenced to seven years in prison for his conduct, the office of U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of the Southern District of New York announced Wednesday.
Scali was found guilty in March 2018 on all 10 counts against him, including mail fraud, making false statements to the IRS, tax evasion and perjury.
“Joseph Scali violated his responsibilities as a lawyer and a taxpayer, and now will have seven years in federal prison to reflect on his wide array of financial crimes and failure to act ethically before the court,” Berman said in a statement.
Scali was charged in July 2018, shortly after he was disbarred by the grievance committee for the Ninth Judicial District over 49 charges of professional misconduct. This followed his practice suspension in 2013. Despite this, Scali represented a client over the next two years, collecting fees for his work. These actions led to his mail fraud convictions.
Prosecutors charged Scali with stealing $850,000 from a perspective land buyer involved in a Pennsylvania property transaction. The funds were to be held in escrow. Instead, Scali misappropriated the funds in his trust account.
Scali engaged in tax evasion over the funds by deliberately withholding trust account records from the IRS. Scali's attempts to deceive the IRS went well beyond this. As far back as 2006, Scali lied and withheld information from the IRS about his trust account, in which he comingled personal funds and used for the payment of personal items. He repeatedly failed to file timely returns and was separately convicted of making false statements to the IRS and structuring cash deposits.
Scali was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Nelson Román, who, on top of the prison term, ordered $1.5 million in restitution for the mail fraud and tax dodging.
Solo practitioner Daniel Hochheiser was assigned to represent Scali post-conviction. He told the Law Journal that despite the sentence coming in below the federal guidelines, “the 84 months of prison imposed today is a lengthy sentence for a 69-year-old with serious health problems.”
Related:
Orange County Attorney Convicted Over Misconduct
Feds: Attorney Stole $850K From Real Estate Buyer
NY Judicial Conduct Commission, in Annual Report, Repeats Call for More Funding
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