STATEN ISLAND — Prosecutors think he wasn't dealin' straight after all.
A disbarred Staten Island lawyer who spent time behind bars for fraud before co-hosting a radio show called "Dealin' Straight" is in trouble with the law again — stealing more than $1 million from owners and potential buyers of homes in Brooklyn while posing as an attorney, prosecutors said.
Dominick Crispino, 52, of Tottenville, was indicted on 21-counts, including grand larceny and practicing law without a license, in Brooklyn Federal Court on Wednesday afternoon for posing as a lawyer and swindling the owners of two homes out of money, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney's office.
He had been arrested for fraud in 1999, and then spent six years in prison for the crime, where he met Frank Gangemi and started the radio show that was broadcast on Sirius, according to descriptions of the show. The show billed itself as "two ex-laywers, two ex-cons," who talked about their time in jail and gave stories from their lives.
But he was back at it again between 2011 and 2015, when Crispino found owners struggling to make payments on their homes, stepped in and offered to help them sell the property, prosecutors said.
In the first incident, a woman couldn't make mortgage payments on her Bath Beach home and had a friend assume ownership to help. Crispino, posing as a lawyer, told them he could sell the house and they should put all the money they would spend on it into an escrow account — which he'd pay the mortgage out of, prosecutors said.
Instead, Crispino never paid the mortgage but cleaned out the account and pocketed down payments from several people interested in the house, making off with $600,000 from the scheme, prosecutors said.
When the friend asked Crispino whether he made the payments after an elderly resident in the house passed away last year, Crispino emailed a forged escrow agreement from Merrill Lynch, which foreclosed on the home, prosecutors said.
He wasn't done, however, and even tried to to take the homeowner's friend into housing court to try and get another $400,000, sources said.
In the second case, a Gravesend home was in foreclosure after the owner couldn't make payments when Crispino came along and forged a deed to buy it for $10, prosecutors said.
While posing as the owner, Crispino collected more down payments from hopeful buyers before disappearing with the cash.
He resurfaced a few years later in 2014 and filed a satisfaction of mortgage on the home then found more buyers, even going to closings with them to collect their checks for $97,936, prosecutors said.
This isn't the first time Crispino has been accused of stealing his clients' funds. In 1999, Crispino was charged in Manhattan after he stole more than $2 million from clients, the New York Times reported. He pocketed settlements for personal injury suits from 12 clients and took annuities from a dead family member's life insurance from two others, the Times reported.
He faces up to 15 years in prison for his latest arrests and is due back in court on Dec. 9, the Brooklyn District Attorney's office said.
