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New York

Former real estate lawyer to serve up to 7 years in the slammer

John Todorovich pleaded guilty to three counts of grand larceny for stealing $800K from clients

Mugshot of John Todorovich
Mugshot of John Todorovich

Former real estate attorney John Todorovich will serve up to seven years in New York state prison after pleading guilty to three counts of second-degree grand larceny for stealing more than $800,000 from clients, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office announced Monday.

Todorovich, 63, received a 2 1/3-to-7-year prison sentence for his crimes, which included “draining [clients’] accounts” at his eponymous Midtown-based law firm, which specialized in handling real estate trusts, estates and transactions, the office for Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr.’s said.

Those transgressions involved transferring $267,000 from a former client’s estate, which he was serving as a co-executor, to his own business and personal accounts in 2010, and doing the same – this time stealing around $368,000 – to another client between 2011 and 2012.

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Also in 2012, Todorovich deposited a $220,000 check meant to be held in escrow for his client (who sold an East Village property) and “made numerous transfers of the funds to his personal accounts, depleting the deposit almost entirely,” according to the DA’s office.

Todorovich used the more than $800,000 in stolen funds “on personal expenses, including memberships to country clubs and car payments for a Mercedes,” the DA’s office added.

Todorovich’s case is the latest instance of Vance’s office going after real estate lawyers accused of shady dealings, with former attorneys Luigi Rosabianca and Claudine King having both been indicted on grand larceny charges over the past year.

King is accused of stealing more than $500,000 from former clients, while Rosabianca faces as much as 12 years in prison for allegedly taking more than $4.4 million from his clients.