Thursday, August 17, 2017

Another Attorney Gets Pinched For Allegedly Sticking Her Sticky Fingers Into Real Estate Escrow Account & Pilfering $40K Held As Downpayment In Home Sale Transaction

From the Office of the Nassau County, New York District Attorney:
  • Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced that a suspended attorney from Islip has been arrested for allegedly stealing $40,000 from a mortgage escrow account. The money had been earmarked as a down payment for a home.

    Nancy Enoksen, 49, was arraigned today [August 14] [...] and charged with Grand Larceny in the Third Degree (a D felony). [...] If convicted, the defendant faces a maximum of 2-1/3 to seven years in prison.

    “Attorneys who betray their clients’ trust and victimize those whose interests they have an obligation to protect, disgrace their profession and when they steal, we will hold them criminally accountable,” DA Singas said.

    DA Singas said in January of 2015, the complainants had retained Enoksen to represent them in the sale of their home in Broad Channel, Queens. The complainants’ buyers gave a cashier’s check for $40,000 payable to “Nancy Enoksen as Attorney” as a down payment on the house. However, in April of 2015, Enoksen’s law license was suspended due to unrelated professional misconduct. Subsequently, the complainants retained a new attorney but when it was time to close on the home in June of 2016, Enoksen is alleged to have refused to release the $40,000 down payment to the new attorney. Attempts to recover the funds by the complainants have been unsuccessful.

    A review of bank records showed that over the course of several months, Enoksen moved the money from her escrow account, located at a TD Bank in Hicksville, and into her operating account. She is accused of using the money to make payments to several credit card companies and make purchases at Stop and Shop, CVS, restaurants and other retailers.