Brooklyn resident Pamela Brown has been unable to recover a $53,000 escrow deposit she lost to disbarred real estate attorney Daphna Zekaria, despite Zekaria’s guilty plea for stealing from clients. Brown hired Zekaria in 2017 to resolve a rent dispute with her Park Slope landlord, entrusting over $53,000 to the lawyer’s escrow account. According to New York Focus, Zekaria later admitted to stealing nearly $400,000 from multiple clients and was disbarred.
Brown said that efforts to get the Manhattan District Attorney’s office to investigate have been unsuccessful. Prosecutors in Suffolk County confirmed that Brown’s funds had disappeared from Zekaria’s accounts by 2020, but the Manhattan DA has not taken action on Brown’s complaints.
The lack of investigation has affected Brown’s ability to receive restitution from the state-run Lawyer’s Fund for Client Protection, which reimburses victims of attorney theft. The Fund denied Brown’s claim this year, citing the absence of an investigation by the Manhattan DA as a factor.
To date, only two of Zekaria’s former clients have been reimbursed by the Fund, even though a court-appointed receiver reported that as many as 30 people may have lost money. “The silence from the Manhattan DA continues to be deafening,” the receiver wrote to Brown last year.
After inquiries from New York Focus, a spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the office would “re-review” Brown’s complaint and contact the Fund. The spokesperson stated that the DA takes “financial fraud in Manhattan, especially misconduct by attorneys, very seriously.”
Eric Seiff, chair of the Lawyer’s Fund for Client Protection, acknowledged that claims can stall without findings from district attorneys. Regarding Brown’s case, he said: “If we had any kind of document to confirm that the money was received in Zekaria’s escrow account, it would make it a different story.”
Zekaria pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $400,000 from three other clients by taking escrow funds and failing to perform legal work after charging significant fees. She faces up to six years in prison if she does not pay restitution by May.
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