Long Island Man Bilked 91-Year-Old Man Out Of $8.5M: Manhattan DA

MANHATTAN, NY — A real estate broker from Northport was sentenced to one to three years in state prison Tuesday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. announced.

Lyndon Chin, 58, used a 91-year-old man’s real estate properties to fraudulently obtain $8.5 million in unauthorized mortgage loans, the DA said. Chin pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree grand larceny, a class B felony.

“Mr. Chin blatantly took advantage of an elderly victim in order to line his own pockets,” Bragg said. “The unfortunate reality is that these types of cases are all too familiar against seniors, who are often viewed as easier targets for fraud, and I encourage those impacted to call our Elder Abuse Unit at 212-335-9007. Our older New Yorkers deserve to have their hard-earned savings protected, and we will continue to crack down on these schemes in any form they take.”

Chin served as the 91-year-old's real estate broker in previous real estate transactions, according to court documents. Chin had helped the man with the purchase and sale of residential and commercial real estate and had knowledge of the man's properties and the corporation through which he owned them, prosecutors said.

In October 2015, Chin used his knowledge of the man's real estate holdings to falsify documents in the name of the man's company and obtain $5 million in mortgage loans on four of the man's Lower Manhattan properties without his knowledge, the DA said. Chin then opened a bank account under the man's corporation and deposited roughly $4.4 million of the fraudulently obtained funds into that account, prosecutors said.

According to prosecutors, a large portion of the funds was paid to at least 20 personal and corporate bank accounts, including accounts belonging to Chin's family members. The rest of the money was used to cover Chin's personal expenses, such as car payments, insurance payments, and jewelry, prosecutors said.

From March through May 2016, Chin secured another $3.5 million in mortgage loans using similar means and deposited approximately $1.9 million into a bank account he had opened specifically to receive the funds, prosecutors said. He then transferred the funds into a different account he controlled, according to the DA.

Chin's actions were discovered when the man he bilked was rejected for a mortgage loan on an unrelated business opportunity because of the existing mortgages that Chin had fraudulently obtained on his properties, prosecutors said.