Lincoln-Lemington woman charged with stealing $100K from father with dementia

Tonya Reid

by  Jonathan D. Silver

A Lincoln-Lemington woman raided her incapacitated father’s checking account, stealing more than $100,000 from his Social Security payments, pension and annuities, authorities said.

Tonya Reid, 51, was charged Wednesday with two felony counts of theft, receiving stolen property, access device fraud and misapplication of entrusted property.

She was arrested Thursday by detectives with the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office.

In 2016, Ms. Reid was designated as the legal guardian for her father, Walter Daniels, 71, who has dementia, a criminal complaint said.

But instead of using Mr. Daniels’ money to pay for his room and board at LGAR Health & Rehabilitation Center in Turtle Creek, where he moved in July 2017, Ms. Reid spent $106,543.34 on herself, investigators said.

“Once Mr. Daniels was transferred to LGAR, Ms. Reid stopped paying her father’s bills at his new facility,” the complaint said. “LGAR did not receive any money from Ms. Reid [on] behalf of her father.”

Detectives alleged that the money went to pay for Ms. Reid’s vehicle, bank fees, beauty supplies, cell phones, travel, liquor and tuition at the University of Pittsburgh, among other personal expenses.

Investigators said that Mr. Daniels, because of his dementia, had no need for any such items or services.

Mr. Daniels had two guardianship accounts; both were closed with zero balances. Ms. Reid’s signature, the complaint said, was the only one on the bank signature cards.

Authorities were alerted to problems by a complaint in June 2018 from an employee from Allegheny County’s Area Agency on Aging.

Ms. Reid was appointed by the court in July 2016 to be her father’s guardian, responsible for paying his bills. But she was removed by Orphans’ Court in March 2018 and replaced by Ursuline Senior Services, which discovered that Mr. Daniels’ guardianship account had been depleted, the complaint said.

It wasn’t until this past June that Ms. Reid’s attorney, identified in the complaint as Jonathan Orie, filed an accounting of the guardianship account with the court.

Investigators found that while Ms. Reid was her father’s guardian, there were $133,776.76 in deposits, but withdrawals of $138,486.42, leaving the account with a negative balance of $4,700. That included nearly $32,000 that paid for Mr. Daniels’ accommodations at a different senior center before he was moved to LGAR. The rest of the money, authorities said, went to Ms. Reid.

Mr. Orie could not be reached for comment.

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Lincoln-Lemington woman charged with stealing $100K from father with dementia

Prison-bound lawyer to pay back over $300K he stole from clients

A Woodbridge lawyer admitted to stealing his clients money, and entered into a plea agreement that includes five years in state prison and restitution of approximately $310,000.

Richard Zuvich, 64, of Woodbridge pleaded guilty Monday in Middlesex County Superior Court to thefts that took place between May 8, 2015 and July 2017 according to Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office.

In the first incident, prosecutors say Zuvich admitted he took the proceeds from a house sale for a client, put the funds in a trust account, then withdrew the funds for himself.

He pleaded guilty to theft by unlawful taking and misapplication of entrusted property.

In another incident, Zuvich stole the insurance settlement money for his client for a house that burned down. Prosecutors say the client had no knowledge that Zuvich had negotiated the settlement.

As part of the settlement, Zuvich pleaded guilty to theft by deception and theft by failure to make required disposition.

Zuvich has practiced as a lawyer for nearly 27 years.

He is scheduled to be sentenced by Superior Court Judge Pedro Jimenez in New Brunswick on Feb. 22, 2019. 

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Prison-bound lawyer to pay back over $300K he stole from clients

Woman allegedly stole $78,000 from great aunt with dementia

Deanna Attinello

A Bethlehem Township woman charged with being the legal guardian for a great aunt with dementia is accused of stealing $78,000 from the woman.

Deanna Attinello, 23, was charged Thursday with second-degree misapplication of entrusted property and theft by failure to make a required disposition of property, following an indictment handed up last week by a state grand jury in Trenton.

"We allege that the defendant shamelessly exploited her position as her aunt's trusted guardian to raid the woman's bank account for own her personal use," New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a news release.

Attinello was appointed her 86-year-old great aunt's legal guardian in January 2017, four months after the elderly woman was diagnosed with dementia and admitted to a long-term residential care facility in Warren County, prosecutors said.

Within days of being appointed, Attinello changed a PNC Bank account belonging to her great aunt to a guardianship account in both their names, and combined the aunt's five other accounts into the guardianship account.

With a balance of about $229,000, Attinello began withdrawing large amounts of cash from the elderly woman's account, investigators said.

About $125,000 was taken for the great aunt's expenses, including her residential case, healthcare costs, legal fees, and property taxes and repair, prosecutors said.

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Woman allegedly stole $78,000 from great aunt with dementia

Disbarred Lawyer Is Convicted in Theft of $1.5M From Clients

A former Jersey City solo practitioner was convicted Wednesday of charges that he stole more than $1.5 million from clients over a period of more than a decade.

A Hudson County jury found Joseph Talafous Jr., 55, of Toms River, New Jersey, 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 Superior Court Judge Mirtha Ospina in Jersey City. The charges carry a term of five to 10 years in state prison. Sentencing is set for Feb. 16.

His attorney, Gerald Miller of Miller, Meyerson && Corbo in Jersey City, said Talafous plans to appeal.

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.

He was also convicted of stealing approximately $300,000 from the estate of an elderly Jersey City woman who died in 2009 without any immediate family. She had hired him to prepare her will and had named him executor of her estate.

And he stole approximately $400,000 from the estate of a Jersey City man who died in 2012 and whose family hired Talafous as attorney for the estate, which included several life insurance policies worth a total of more than $870,000.

Finally, from 2012 to 2015, Talafous stole $330,000 that was entrusted to him as counsel for the estate of a Jersey City woman who owned property in New York.

The case was referred to the Division of Criminal Justice by the New Jersey Office of Attorney Ethics. The Supreme Court of New Jersey revoked Talafous’ license to practice law by consent in August 2015.

“Lawyers have a duty to uphold the law and protect the interests of their clients, but Talafous treated his law license like a license to steal, sinking to the point of stealing nearly half a million dollars from a young boy who lost his father,” Attorney General Christopher Porrino said in a statement. “This verdict will send Talafous to prison, where he belongs for his deplorable conduct. I commend our attorneys, detectives and entire trial team for building a strong case and skillfully presenting it at trial.”

“This verdict sends a strong message that lawyers who abuse their licenses and break the law will face stern punishment,” Director Elie Honig of the Division of Criminal Justice said in a statement. “We will not tolerate lawyers who steal from their clients.”

But Miller, the defense attorney, said Talafous has continued to deny the charges and maintained that he did not take any funds he was not entitled to. “There are substantial grounds to appeal,” Miller said, citing evidentiary rulings during trial.

 Talafous’ charges originally included money laundering in the first degree, but that charge was dismissed by the Appellate Division in June 2017.

The Appellate Division said evidence that Talafous used his trust and business accounts to facilitate the alleged thefts by itself didn’t support the charge of money laundering, the only first-degree offense among the 19 counts with which he was charged.

In that ruling, the appeals court said the money laundering statute is intended to be construed broadly to serve its purposes, but it requires proof of something more than an underlying crime.

“The State presented no evidence that the theft was concealed (as opposed to committed) through placement of the money in defendant’s accounts,” the Appellate Division said.

Deputy Attorneys General Janet Bosi and Brandy Malfitano tried the case for the state.

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Disbarred Lawyer Is Convicted in Theft of $1.5M From Clients

Woman Stole $87K From Mom in Wayne Nursing Home: AG

WAYNE, NJ — A California woman is accused of stealing more than $87,000 from her elderly mother living in a Wayne nursing home, said state Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino.

Pamela M. Land, 68, allegedly used the power of attorney she had over her mother's money to drain the woman's bank account rather than make the monthly payments to the nursing home.

Land allegedly stole the more than $87,700 from May 2013 to January 2016, authorities said.

She allegedly used the money for shopping sprees and racked up debt on her credit cards. She also allegedly used the money to pay for her daily expenses, Porrino said. The elderly woman had given Land oversight of the money to fund her stay at the nursing home.

Land was indicted on charges of misapplication of entrusted property and theft by unlawful taking, both second-degree offenses.

“Stealing the life savings of an elderly person is reprehensible, but it’s especially gut wrenching when the crime is committed by the ailing victim’s own daughter,” Porrino said in a statement.

Land faces a maximum of 20 years in state prison and a $150,000 fine if she is found guilty of the charges.

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Woman Stole $87K From Mom in Wayne Nursing Home: AG