Nassau Attorney Sentenced For Stealing More Than $5 Million From Clients

A West Hempstead attorney was sentenced to three to nine years in prison on Monday for stealing more than $5.7 million from his clients from 2012 to 2014. He will also have to pay restitution to the victims of his crimes.

David Frankel, 52, pleaded guilty to first-degree grand larceny on Jan. 10.

“Within days of receiving $5.7 million of his clients’ money to hold in escrow, this unscrupulous lawyer began stealing the funds, spending nearly all of it for his own personal purposes,” said District Attorney Madeline Singas. “Thanks to our prosecutors and investigators, this defendant will now go to prison and be forced to return the money to his former clients.”

Frankel represented seven realty companies between June 13 and Sept. 12, 2012, with overlapping ownership in eight Brooklyn properties. The properties were refinanced and $5,769,281.17 was placed in escrow into an Interest on Lawyer Account. The companies were held by relatives and the principals were deciding how to distribute the funds.

Several days after the money was deposited into the account, Frankel began drawing on it and using the money to fund his own unsuccessful investments and to make payments in unrelated real estate transactions. The account, in which other unrelated money was periodically deposited, was drawn down to a balance of $836.81 by Feb. 28, 2014. Frankel was not authorized to use the funds for any purposes other than distributing them as instructed by the principals of the companies. Frankel was disbarred in October, 2015.

Photo: Nassau County District Attorney