NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Three men pleaded guilty to stealing property and more than $400,000 from a foreclosure sale of a house in Queens with forged signatures, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced on Tuesday.
Jonathan Marcus, 53, Vincent Longobardi, 76, and Edward Doran, 46, – as well as East Coast Money Finders, Inc. – pleaded guilty on June 23, 2022, to criminal possession of the stolen property and subsequently made restitution of more than $400,000 to the victim, Katz announced.
The trio, from 2010 to 2016, wrote three separate inquiries to the NYC Department of Finance regarding unclaimed surplus funds from the 2006 foreclosure auction of a house in the Cambria Heights neighborhood in Queens.
Longobardi and Marcus made the inquiries in April 2010 and February 2012, Longobardi filed a third request on behalf of East Coast Money Finders in December 2015.
Doran then contacted the NYC Department of Finance the next year to inquire about missing documentation necessary to claim the surplus money, and Marcus submitted the missing documentation a few days later.
East Coast Money Finders, Inc. filed a motion in Queens County Supreme Court claiming rights to the surplus funds totaling nearly $350,000 in 2015. They handed in two documents with the owners’ forged signatures filed with the Court in support. These documents reassured that Marcus would split the funds between the company and the original homeowners.
After the trio provided the NYC Department of Finance with all the paperwork, including a court order based on the forged documents authorizing distribution of the funds, a NYC Department of Finance check for $394,216 was deposited into East Coast Money Finders, Inc.’s bank account.
Each of the defendants received a portion of the funds.
The years-long scheme was revealed in January 2021, when the widow who owned the home with her husband at the time attempted to claim the surplus funds herself, according to the investigation. It was revealed that neither the 67-year-old woman nor her husband had signed any documents and never received the funds.
The trio and the company were indicted.
“In pleading guilty, the three defendants, in this case, took responsibility for illegally claiming a nearly $400,000 surplus from a foreclosure sale with forged signatures and fraudulent documents,” Katz said.
As part of the agreement, the defendants and the corporation will provide full restitution, which also covers legal fees incurred by the victim in trying to rectify the theft in a civil action.
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