Brooklyn Lawyer Pleads Guilty To $6M Real Estate Scam: Feds

BROOKLYN, NY — A Brooklyn attorney has pleaded guilty to swindling millions of dollars from investors through a years-long real estate scam, prosecutors announced.

Shimon Rosenfeld, 59, pleaded guilty to defrauding investors on Thursday, three months after he was first charged with wire fraud for the multi-million-dollar scheme, officials said.

Rosenfeld was accused of telling investors that he would put their money in real estate projects — including some in Brooklyn — but instead using the money for his own trades out of a brokerage account, according to prosecutors.

Investigators first said Rosenfeld scammed victims out of $4 million. On Thursday, they updated that number to at least $6 million.

“The defendant, a licensed lawyer, swindled his investors by claiming he was ‘flipping’ properties, when in reality the only thing he flipped was their millions of dollars in investments into his own personal bank accounts,” stated Acting United States Attorney Mark Lesko. “It is particularly egregious that the defendant perpetrated this fraud scheme as a member of the bar who betrayed the trust of victims who believed his lies.”

Rosenfeld's scheme, between May 2014 and March 2018, included properties in Crown Heights, Greenpoint and in Philadelphia, Pa., according to previously-released court documents.

He told investors that he would use their money to purchase real estate, sell it to a prospective buyer at a higher price and split the profits. But instead, he would put the money in bank accounts he controlled and use it to trade securities, prosectors said.