Indictment: Ex-judge stole cash from client

YOUNGSTOWN — Former Mahoning County Judge Diane Vettori-Caraballo of Youngstown was accused in an indictment Thursday of stealing between $100,200 and $328,000 in cash that was in the home of a client when the client died in March 2016.

A Mahoning County grand jury handed up indictments against Vettori-Caraballo on charges of mail fraud, structuring cash deposits and making false statements to law enforcement. Vettori-Caraballo, 50, and her husband, Ismael Caraballo, 60, were also charged with one count of filing a false tax return.

In her private practice, Vettori-Caraballo provided estate planning services to Robert Sampson, including drafting his will, according to the indictment. On Nov. 20, 2015, Vettori-Caraballo filed an application in Mahoning County Probate Court to administer Sampson’s estate. The application stated Sampson died without a will.

The probate court, unaware of Sampson’s will, appointed his sister, Dolores Falgiani, as the administrator three days later, according to the indictment.

Vettori-Caraballo had also prepared Falgiani’s will, according to the indictment. The will made 16 bequests to relatives and friends and bequeathed the rest of the estate to Animal Charity Human Society of Boardman and the Angels for Animal Charity in Canfield, according to the indictment.

Sometime in October or November 2015, Falgiani told Vettori-Caraballo that she had several shoeboxes of cash stored at her residence, the indictment states.

Falgiani was found dead in her home on March 10, 2016, according to the indictment. Vettori-Caraballo filed an application two weeks later in Mahoning County Probate Court to probate Falgiani’s estate.

On May 2, she reported having found $20,000 in cash in the residence and depositing it into the estate, according to the indictment. She filed a notice of newly discovered assets with the court on several subsequent occasions in 2016 and 2017.

However, the amounts were not what she actually found, according to the indictment. Investigators said she made 22 deposits in her name into five banks within four weeks to avoid regulations that require banks to report cash transactions over $10,000 to the IRS, the indictment states.

The information charges that Vettori-Caraballo lied to the FBI when she was confronted about the theft and the structuring of cash deposits.

Vettori-Caraballo was elected to position of judge in Mahoning County Court 3, Sebring Court, in 2002, with jurisdiction over misdemeanor criminal and traffic charges and other matters in Sebring and Beloit Villages and Berlin, Green, Goshen, Ellsworth, Smith and Washingtonville Townships. She was re-elected in 2006 and 2012, according to the indictment.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brian M. McDonough and Alex Abreu.

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Indictment: Ex-judge stole cash from client