Home sale victims tell of bounced checks from Harrison lawyer [New York]
Lizette Santiago worked two jobs for a dozen years to pay the mortgage on her Queens home. The 41-year-old single mom used her earnings as a bookkeeper and waitress to build up equity in her Woodhaven home.
She put her house on the market earlier this year, looking to reap the rewards of her hard work as she settled her family permanently in Orlando, Fla.
She found a buyer and closed last month on the $678,400 sale. Her $286,000 mortgage was supposed to be paid off by funds from the buyer’s side. Santiago got three checks totaling more than $323,000 at the Nov. 17 closing from the buyer’s law firm, Bellettieri, Fonte and Laudonio, P.C.
But the checks to Santiago bounced, she said. The $286,000 check to her mortgage company bounced. The check to her lawyer bounced. Law enforcement sources said Anthony Bellettieri, the founding partner of the Harrison-based law firm, is being investigated in the theft of funds from clients’ escrow accounts.