Editor's note: This Shark could envision the pirates in the Probate Court of Cook County receiving such a "slap on the wrist". Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
Bronx estate lawyer who stole from clients' wills sentenced to pay $150,000 fine
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Tuesday, March 3, 2015, 2:05 AM
Updated: Tuesday, March 3, 2015, 2:06 AM
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Michael Schwartz /for New York Daily NewsMichael Lippman (right) pictured at his sentencing in Bronx Supreme Court on March 2, 2015.
Michael Lippman, who the Daily News exposed as stealing thousands of dollars from clients' wills while working for nearly three decades as a public administrator, dodged prison time, but was sentenced to pay a fine of just under $150,000.
As counsel to the Bronx public administrator from 1983 to 2010, Lippman was tasked with distributing an estate's assets and finding heirs.
A Department of Investigation probe found instead that the lawyer pocketed more than $1.5 million in upfront fees between 2005 and April 2008 - money that should have went to families of the deceased.
Lippman took a plea deal in September in which he agreed to pay back $145,829.40 to the estates of two families. His attorney, Murray Richman, handed a Bronx assistant district attorney the checks on Monday.
Lippman would have faced two to six years behind bars had he not coughed up the fine.
