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A disbarred New York attorney is accused of stealing more than $925,000 that had been rewarded to a former New York City police officer and 9/11 first responder by the Victim Compensation Fund, officials recently announced.
Gustavo Vila, 62, was barred from practicing law in New York State in 2015 but kept working for at least one client -- a retired NYPD officer who was suffering from “very serious” 9/11-related illnesses, including cancer -- purportedly to help the man file a claim through the Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) in May 2013, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced late Thursday.
The fund is dedicated to providing financial relief to heroes who were harmed or killed as a result of their service during and after the 2001 terror attack.
Gustavo Vila (Lawyer.com)
But Vila allegedly arranged to have any potential reward deposited into his Westchester-based law firm’s own bank account. When his client was awarded $1,030,622.04 in September 2016, Vila kept nearly all of it for himself, according to a criminal complaint pertaining to his Thursday arrest.
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“Vila allegedly lied to his client, telling the client for more than three years that the money Vila stole had yet to be released by the Fund,” Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss, who represents the Southern District of New York, said in a prepared press release. “Further, Vila lied to his client about his standing, continuing to hold himself out as an attorney even after he had been disbarred.”
An attorney representing Vila refused to comment when contacted by Fox News.
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Vila was disbarred in December 2015 after he was arrested and charged with grand larceny earlier that year, an offense to which he pleaded guilty.
When the VCF deposited the full relief amount meant for the victim in October 2016, “Vila was required to distribute all of that money, less than 10% for his purported attorney’s fees, to” the victim, court papers state.
Instead, one week later, he allegedly told the man he would be receiving a check for $103,062.20 -- about 10% of the actual reward total -- and the claim had been “paid in full,” court papers further allege. As of the Aug. 20 criminal complaint for Vila’s arrest, the victim had not received even a cent more, records stated.
Vila is accused of stealing approximately $927,559 from his seriously ill client.
He instead used the money to pay his taxes – writing a check for $16,429 for 2015 taxes, according to court documents -- and allegedly made another unspecified payment of $190,000. On Oct. 14, 2016, he allegedly wrote his then-wife two checks for a combined $182,270.95, and later sent her another check for $103,062.20, the document states. He also allegedly paid himself $6,000.
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Vila allegedly maintained the lie to his client until February this year, roughly a month after the victim first learned that he had been disbarred years earlier.
In the beginning of February, the victim “contact[ed] VCF, which informed [him] that his entire reward had been released in 2016, with no restrictions on its immediate distribution.” He confronted Vila, who confessed.
Vila was charged with theft of government funds and faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
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