NEW YORK – A disbarred attorney who formerly had a practice in the
Town of Wallkill was indicted by a federal grand jury on six-count including
mail fraud, structuring cash transactions, obstructing the IRS, tax evasion,
obstruction of justice and perjury.
Scali, 67, of West Hartford, Connecticut, was arrested Friday morning
and was to be arraigned later in the day.
According to the indictment, from February 2011 through August 28, 2012,
Scali, who represented the seller of two tracts of property in Pennsylvania,
schemed to defraud the prospective purchaser of that real estate of the
$850,000 the latter had given to him to hold in escrow by misappropriating
those funds from his attorney trust/escrow account. The indictment also
charges Scali with structuring approximately $32,000 of cash deposits
to that account.
The indictment further charges Scali corruptly endeavored to obstruct
the IRS by providing materially false, incomplete, and misleading information
to a revenue officer of the IRS, namely, false, misleading, information
as to the years for which he had filed tax returns in the past, the reasons
why he had not filed tax returns for certain years, and the amount of
income received by him during tax year 2012. He is also charged with commingling
client funds and personal funds in his attorney trust account; paying
for personal items directly out of his attorney trust account; structuring
cash deposits to his attorney trust account; failing to file US individual
income tax returns; failing to file US corporate income tax returns; and
failing to maintain required records by law to file a return for each
year.
If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 20 years in federal prison.
