NJ Attorney Gets 26 Years in Prison for Scamming $1.5 Million From Clients
A former Jersey City solo, criminally convicted and stripped of his license on charges that he stole more than $1.5 million from three clients over a period of more than a decade, has been sentenced to 26 years behind bars.
March 29, 2018 at 04:25 PM
4 minute read
A former Jersey City solo, criminally convicted and stripped of his license on charges that he stole more than $1.5 million from three clients over a period of more than a decade, has been sentenced to 26 years behind bars.
Hudson County Superior Court Judge Mirtha Ospina handed down the sentence to disbarred attorney Joseph Talafous Jr., 55, of Toms River, on Thursday.
Talafous, though, has denied the allegations and plans to appeal, according to his lawyer, Gerald Miller of Miller, Meyerson & Corbo in Jersey City.
Last Jan. 10, a jury found Talafous guilty of three counts of theft by unlawful taking, three counts of theft by failure to make required disposition of property received, five counts of misapplication of entrusted property, two counts of theft by deception, and four counts of filing fraudulent state income tax returns. All of the convictions were for offenses of the second or third degree. The verdict followed a six-week trial before Ospina.
Prosecutors said Talafous used a power of attorney to make unauthorized withdrawals of thousands of dollars from the investment account of an elderly client who lived in Jersey City, and from the client's estate after the client died in 2010.
Talafous was also convicted of stealing approximately $461,000 from a trust set up for the benefit of a young boy in 2005 with funds from a wrongful death suit stemming from the death of his father. The father died in 2001 in a workplace accident when the child, a West New York resident, was still an infant.
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