Westchester Attorney Pleads Guilty To Mail Fraud For Attempting To Embezzle From A Decedent’s Estate

Westchester attorney Guy Parisi pleaded guilty this week to mail fraud. It seems like Parisi attempted to embezzle funds from an estate for which he also served as a court-appointed administrator.  

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said: 

Guy Parisi flouted his fiduciary duty to the estate for which he was the administrator.  He attempted to direct fees from the estate to a company he himself formed with a relative.  

Federal prosecutors also allege:

Parisi was appointed an administrator of the estate of a former resident of Mount Vernon in or about April 2017.  His duties as administrator included collecting the assets of the estate.  As an administrator, PARISI had a fiduciary duty to the estate and to the decedent’s son, the sole beneficiary of his father’s will.  New York law provided for a fee for estate administrators like PARISI based on a percentage of the value of the estate’s assets.

The estate’s assets escheated to the State of New York as abandoned property between 2000 and 2008. 

The Westchester attorney retained Stokes Asset Recovery Services as the estate’s abandoned property location service after becoming the administrator. Parisi also promised Stokes 15% of the value of the estate’s assets held by the Comptroller.

Stokes was owned by one of his relatives. Parisi and his relative also actively concealed this from New York State officials. In addition, he also did not disclose he and the relative formed Stokes less than two weeks before he notified the Comptroller of his retention of Stokes. Parisi also knew that the estate’s assets held by the Comptroller were worth several million dollars when he retained Stokes.