Great Neck Attorney Sentenced For Stealing From Clients, Former Family Member

An attorney with offices in Great Neck was sentenced to prison on Tuesday for stealing approximately $470,000 from a Manhasset couple and a former family member, according to Acting Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas.

Daniel Spitalnic, 39, of Whitestone, Queens, was sentenced to serve one to three years in prison and was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $496,602.39.

“Attorneys are barred from commingling client funds with their own, but this defendant flagrantly violated his ethical obligations and our criminal laws when he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients and his former mother-in-law,” Singas said in a press release.

In the first case, the attorney, who was admitted to the bar in 2003, stole a $171,500 down payment pending the closing of a home from a family he represented that was selling a residence in Manhasset, the DA said.

The closing of the property was held on Sept. 8, 2015, but the escrow money, and $7,460 due to a title insurance company, were never received by the family, the DA says. The $7,460 did not clear due to insufficient funds in the escrow account, according to the report.

In the second case, Spitalnic obtained a $300,000 loan secured by a mortgage on a commercial property in Great Neck that belonged to his former mother-in-law’s corporation in March 2015 by falsely representing himself as part owner of the company, the DA says.

He allegedly used this money for personal use such as rent, travel, entertainment, food and other expenses.
According to the DA, the former mother-in-law found out about Spitalnic’s actions in May 2015 when she went to pay real estate taxes and learned that the taxes were already paid by a title company.

She confronted Spitalnic, who said he took out the mortgage because he owed money and told her that she would be paid back, the DA says. He then allegedly gave her a forged Satisfaction of Mortgage document that claimed the loan had been satisfied.

Spitalnic was arrested in November 2015. He pleaded guilty on March 28 to three counts of second-degree grand larceny.

Image via NCDA