A disbarred attorney from Old Westbury has admitted to stealing more than $4 million from clients and banks he represented in real estate deals—including his own wife—over a four-year period.
James Kalpakis pleaded guilty Thursday at Nassau County court to grand larceny.
Prosecutors said the 52-year-old thief obtained a $1.1-million loan to refinance a mortgage on a home his wife owned by submitting a forged power of attorney in her name, allowing him to sign the forms in her absence in 2008—four years after he was disbarred.
The following year, Kalpakis stole $1.3 million from a victim that he sold two homes to using forged deeds from banks that were not actually the owners and another $500,000 from the same victim in an oil, gas and mineral lease investment scam, authorities said.
In 2010, he stole a $750,000 mortgage from a private investment firm, $150,000 from another victim he fraudulently sold property to and $45,000 from a victim for the purchase of a home, prosecutors said.
And in the most recent scheme, Kalpakis twice scammed the same victim by promising to settle a pair of nonexistent lawsuits.
Judge Philip Grella is expected to sentence Kalpakis on Dec. 3 to 3-1/3 to 10 years in prison.
