A disbarred Long Island lawyer was charged Thursday with bilking $4 million from clients in what Manhattan prosecutors said was a shameless real estate Ponzi scheme.
Alice Belmonte, 47, was hit with multiple felony larceny, forgery and theft charges in a 49-count indictment in Manhattan Supreme Court. Bail was set at $3 million.
“She stole money from anyone who would give it to her,” assistant district attorney Amy Justiniano blasted. “Despite the fact that she’s a lawyer, she has shown that she has no regard for the judicial system.”
Between August 2011 and January 2013, Belmonte lined up investors to buy foreclosed properties , promising fast and big returns on the investment. Instead, prosecutors said, Belmonte took that money and used it to reimburse prior investors in her scheme and for her own personal use.
Belmonte, a 1992 Fordham Law graduate who lives in Wading River, scammed more than 10 victims, including her own friends, prosecutors alleged.
“She is a lawyer who people trusted and she violated that trust,” said Justiniano.
Belmonte was already the subject of an $8 million federal lawsuit brought by Florida plaintiffs, who claimed she scammed $7 million through her real estate schemes, when she voluntarily resigned from the New York State bar last February.
But she continued to troll for prospective new investors as recently as August, Justiniano said.
“They’re alleging a Ponzi scheme,” Belmonte’s lawyer, Dennis Murphy said. “We submit this is investments in real estate that went bad.”