A judge tossed a disbarred Long Island lawyer in prison for 3 to 9 years Wednesday for bilking $4 million from clients she’d roped into a real estate Ponzi scheme.
Alice Belmonte, 47, copped to multiple felony larceny, forgery and theft charges June 11.
Prosecutors requested the lengthy prison term because Belmonte had refused to help pay back the stolen money.
“The defendant didn’t offer any restitution,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Lauren Littman told Justice Melissa Jackson arguing for a hefty sentence. “Many of the victims have rightly been infuriated about the defendant’s lack of cooperation.”
The disgraced lawyer has also refused to to aid the trustee whose job it is to try to recoup money and assets to make the victims whole, prosecutors said.
Between August 2011 and January 2013, Belmonte lined up investors to buy foreclosed properties, promising big returns.
Instead, Belmonte took that money and used it to reimburse prior investors and for her own personal use.
The 1992 Fordham Law graduate who lives in Wading River, scammed more than 10 victims, including her own friends.
Before this case, Belmonte was already the subject of an $8 million federal lawsuit brought by Florida plaintiffs, who claimed she scammed $7 million from them.
She voluntarily resigned from the New York State bar last February.