Brooklyn Attorney Stole $86K From 76-Year-Old Client: DA

BROOKLYN, NY — A former Brooklyn attorney is facing grand larceny charges after he stole nearly $86,000 from a client selling her home in Brownsville, according to prosecutors.

Gerald Douglas, who was disbarred in 2019, is accused of taking a $71,700 downpayment meant for a 76-year-old client he represented back in 2018. On top of the downpayment, Douglas also borrowed $14,000 from the woman that he never paid back, prosecutors said.

“The victim in this case was allegedly defrauded of a large sum of money by her own attorney, who had a legal duty to protect her interests," Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said. "I would like to thank my Public Integrity Bureau for its hard work in seeking to hold the defendant accountable for his alleged criminal act and betrayal of trust.”

Douglas, who lives in East Flatbush, was arraigned Thursday on second-degree grand larceny charges.

According to the investigation, Douglas negotiated a contract to sell the woman's Brownsville house in September 2018 up until a downpayment was deposited in his escrow account.

But by the time the sale closed in 2019, Douglas stopped answering the woman's phone calls, prosecutors said. She was forced to hire a new attorney to close the sale.

"The client received the sale proceeds at the closing, but not the down payment despite repeated requests to the defendant," prosecutors said.

Douglas also had asked the woman to loan him money twice before the sale of her house, saying that he was expecting a rental payment for a property he owned in Flatbush. The woman gave him $6,000, then another $8,000 in June and July of that year, prosecutors said.

It turns out the property in Flatbush, which Douglas didn't even own anymore, had gone into foreclosure five years earlier, prosecutors said.

Douglas is expected back in court in May.