A now disbarred attorney operating out of an office address in Great Neck was charged with grand larceny and scheme to defraud for withholding more than $133,000 in down payments from real estate transactions he was involved in in the Bronx, Queens, and Suffolk County in 2023 and 2024, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly announced.
Marco Materassi, of Dania Beach, Fla., was arraigned on Thursday, Jan. 22, on four counts of grand larceny and scheme to defraud. He pleaded not guilty and is due back in court on Feb. 19. If convicted, he faces up to two-and-a-third to seven years in prison.
In 2024 and 2025, several complaints were filed with the district attorney’s office alleging that Materassi had unlawfully withheld funds on behalf of clients he represented in real estate transactions and failed to return funds to a buyer in another transaction in which the defendant represented the seller of a property, Donnelly said.
An investigation discovered that in several real estate transactions between November 2023 and January 2024, Materassi withheld a total of $133,950 of real estate down payments for three of his clients and one opposing real estate party, the DA said.
The wires or checks for these down payments were deposited into the bank account of Materassi’s law office, Materassi Legal P.C., at 55 Northern Blvd. in Great Neck. Materassi was the only authorized signatory of the account, Donnelly said.
On Nov. 15, 2023, a woman hired Materassi to represent her in the sale of her home in the Bronx, giving him $25,000 for the down payment, Donnelly said. The checks were then deposited into the Materassi’s law office bank account, the DA said. Materassi was to hold the funds in escrow until the woman moved out of the property, she said.
Materassi was given another $6,200 by the buyer at closing, $5,000 of which was to be held in escrow, Donnelly said. When the complainant vacated the premises, Miaterassi failed to provide the $30,000 held in the escrow account, the DA said.
In December 2023, another woman hired Materassi to represent her in the sale of her Bronx home. The contracted buyer wired $25,000 for the down payment to Materassi’s law office bank account, Donnelly said.
Before her closing, Materassi informed the woman that another law firm would be representing her because his firm was going to be “assumed by another firm or cease to exist,” the DA said.
On April 23, 2024, the woman attended her scheduled closing. Materassi did not appear or provide the buyer’s down payment funds from his escrow account, Donnelly said.
In another alleged scheme, Materassi was hired to represent a man in the sale of his home in Forest Hills, Queens, in March 2024. A contract of sale was executed, and the buyer wired a down payment of $47,800 into Materassi’s law office bank account, Donnelly said.
Materassi did not appear at the scheduled closing on Aug. 7, 2025, but called in and participated on speakerphone. He did not provide the $47,500 check at closing but allegedly said that he would wire $41,854 to the complainant the following day, the DA said.
The complainant made several follow-up attempts to collect the funds, but Materassi did not respond, Donnelly said.
On Jan. 4, 2024, Materassi participated in a contract of sale on behalf of a property seller in Ronkonkoma. A buyer sent Materassi a $31,150 wire transfer deposit to Materassi’s law office bank account, the DA said.
Materassi failed to respond to any of the buyer’s or the buyer’s attorney’s communications and never returned the $31,150 to the buyer, Donnelly said.
Bank records obtained during the investigation showed that as of Dec. 10, 2024, the law office bank account was closed by the bank and had a negative $15.00 balance, the DA said.
Between December 2023 and December 2024, Materassi allegedly used the funds in his “trust account” for purposes unrelated to the retention of client escrow funds, including numerous money transfers to unrelated bank accounts that he used for purchases at restaurants, gas stations, other miscellaneous purchases and transfers into other accounts, Donnelly said.
Materassi was disbarred on June 18, 2025, the DA said.
