What to Know
- A former New Jersey lawyer was sentenced to prison for stealing more than half a million dollars in settlement funds from two dozen of his clients in Brooklyn and nearly $100,000 in COVID-19 relief funds, local prosecutors said.
- Raleigh Douglas Herbert, 61, of Chatham, was sentenced Wednesday to one to three years in prison, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said. Herbert pleaded guilty to second- and third-degree grand larceny as well as first-degree scheme to defraud on Dec. 16, 2022.
- According to Gonzalez, citing evidence, said that, from 2015 to 2021, Herbert, who handled wrongful arrests and personal injury cases against New York City, embezzled about $493,000 from 16 of his clients in Brooklyn by depositing checks received from negotiated settlements into his attorney escrow account.
A former New Jersey lawyer was sentenced to prison for stealing more than half a million dollars in settlement funds from two dozen of his clients in Brooklyn and nearly $100,000 in COVID-19 relief funds, local prosecutors said.
Raleigh Douglas Herbert, 61, of Chatham, was sentenced Wednesday to one to three years in prison, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said. Herbert pleaded guilty to second- and third-degree grand larceny as well as first-degree scheme to defraud on Dec. 16, 2022.
According to Gonzalez, citing evidence, said that, from 2015 to 2021, Herbert, who handled wrongful arrests and personal injury cases against New York City, embezzled about $493,000 from 16 of his clients in Brooklyn by depositing checks received from negotiated settlements into his attorney escrow account.
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In order to hide these thefts, Herbert lied to his clients about why they did not receive the money, including blaming COVID-19 related court closures or claiming that the victims had liens that prevented him from paying them when no such liens existed.
Additionally, Herbert stole about $96,000 by filing fraudulent loan applications through the COVID-19 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) run by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Herbert was arrested on Feb. 1, 2022, and again on May 2, 2022, under two separate indictments that were later combined. Subsequently, Herbert was arrested for a third time, on Dec. 7, 2022, on a felony complaint charging him with stealing about $77,000 from eight additional clients who came forward following his second arrest.
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Herbert was then suspended from practicing law in New York State in March 2021, but continued to represent a client in a wrongful death lawsuit against the New York City Police Department -- not telling his client – who was set to receive a $750,000 settlement – he had been suspended.
Herbert was then disbarred in June 2022.
According to the district attorney, the embezzled funds were used on various personal expenses and unrelated debts.
"This defendant repeatedly violated his oath as an attorney and betrayed the trust of his clients by pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlement money and COVID-19 relief funds to which he was not entitled. Criminal conduct in the legal profession is unacceptable, and today’s sentence sends a strong message that it will be prosecuted vigorously," Gonzalez said in a statement.
The Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection of the State of New York has reimbursed a total of approximately $470,000 to 16 of the defendant’s victims, according to the district attorney's office.
"The theft of law client money is not only a crime, but a profound violation of the trust placed in lawyers. On behalf of the over 351,000 members of New York’s legal profession, the Lawyers’ Fund strives to restore that trust by reimbursing the financial harm caused by the statistically few in our profession who cause such losses,” Michael J. Knight, Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection said.
