Howard Seidler, Prolific Sunset Park Con Man, Goes Back to Jail

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN — A 70-year-old member of the immigrant-rich community in Sunset Park has been taking advantage of his undocumented neighbors by posing as an immigration lawyer and pocketing steep legal fees, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office.

Howard Seidler, who lives on 51st Street near 3rd Avenue, "preyed on some of the most vulnerable members of our society — undocumented immigrants looking for legal help," Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson said.

Seidler was sentenced Wednesday to two to four years in prison for grand larceny and immigrant assistance services fraud, the DA's Office said.

Back in February, when Seidler plead guilty to the latter charge — a Class E felony — he became the first person in New York to be convicted under the year-old law, passed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. ("New York has a long history of welcoming immigrants from around the world," Cuomo said as he signed the bill, "and today we are continuing that heritage with a new law that protects new New Yorkers and solidifies the services we provide.")

A phone number listed online for Seidler was shut off Wednesday. "The person you're calling cannot accept calls at this time," a lady robot said after zero rings.

Seidler's website, however, was somehow still live after his sentencing.

The site, WhatItIsWhatItMeans.com, is a dissonant, MySpace-style collage of clip art, warped U.S. Constitution snippets and photos of Seidler's allegedly satisfied customers holding up their alleged immigration docs.

"Esquire Howard knows the legal system — he understands what it is all about and can help you get what you want," Seidler writes on the site. "He has been dealing with the Courts for many years and he himself has been sent to jail. However, and whatever the system has done to him — he still stands for the Rights of the little man."

Indeed: Seidler was reportedly arrested in 2007, when he was 62, for posing as a real New York attorney named Harold Weber.

Back then, Seidler, posing as Weber, collected $18,000 to represent a Connecticut woman fighting a drunk-driving charge, according to Fox News.

More from the Fox News report on Seidler's bizarre behavior during that trial:

Prosecutor David Applegate, who tried the Stamford drunken driving case, said Seidler asked strange questions during jury selection.

Most defense attorneys ask standard questions such as whether jurors understand reasonable doubt.

"If you were in a forest and you came to a clearing, and you saw a house, could you describe the house," Seidler asked one potential juror, according to a transcript.

"Just a little plain house, kind of disheveled," the juror answered.

"That is good enough," Seidler responded. "She is acceptable by me."

He asked another juror whether he consumed alcohol like the fraternity brothers in the movie "Animal House," then asked whether the juror liked animals.

After the trial, Applegate looked up Weber in a database and found two matches, then discovered Seidler's biography was a mix of details from the men's lives.

Officials decided to see if Seidler would show up at court for Idrizaj's sentencing. He did, carrying a briefcase with his real name engraved on it.

Fox also reported in 2007 that federal authorities were "investigating cases across in the country in which Seidler may have posed as Weber," and that Seidler "was convicted in the 1980s of grand larceny, as well as posing as a lawyer or a doctor in the 1970s."

Seidler claims on his immigration-attorney website to be a veteran of both the U.S. Army and the NYPD.

The elderly Sunset Park resident also appears to have been running a fake talent agency out of his 51st Street home. On a website called Black Cat Show Biz — which, unlike the attorney site, has been taken down — Seidler asks wannabe actors, models, etc., to send him their personal information along with a $100 fee.

"It's a jungle out there, and navigating it requires a real pro," the showbiz site says.

The site is littered with pixelated photos of major celebrities like Susan Sarandon and Brad Pitt, apparently photoshopped to include personalized thank-you notes to "Howie" in black marker.

"If you do not forward your information... You will not be working," the site says.

One review for Seidler on an anonymous attorney-rating website calls him "a troubled, delusional man whom cannot break free from his fantasy realm."

Another (supposed) reviewer counters: "The man may be a bit eccentric, and I don't know the full facts of the Connecticut situation, but he is brilliant, resourceful, witty, gifted, analytical, able to grasp vast amounts of information very quickly, and with a win record like he has, I will use him as a legal consultant even if he got his law degree from a box of Crackerjack."

Below is a tweet issued last year from Seidler's own Twitter account.

According to Brooklyn prosecutors, Seidler was caught red-handed in the midst of his latest scheme when a detective with the DA's Office, responding to ads Seidler had posted around Sunset Park, met with Seidler in the library of the Brooklyn Bar Association in Brooklyn Heights last year — which he allegedly claimed was his office.

Things went south from there, the DA's Office said in a news release.

On April 8, 2015, the detective paid Seidler $3,085 to act as his attorney and help him obtain a green card and a Social Security card. The undercover was then provided with a written retainer contract.

The District Attorney said that on April 24, 2015, the undercover had another meeting with Seidler, who gave him a Social Security card and immigration paperwork purportedly filed on his behalf with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service. The investigation found that the Social Security card was forged, that the Social Security number did not belong to the name used by the detective and that no application was filed on his behalf with United States immigration authorities.

In the end, DA's investigators said they discovered Seidler is "neither licensed nor registered to practice law in New York and that he is not licensed or accredited by the Board of Immigration Appeals to provide any services with immigration authorities."

Sunset Park's prolific con man will serve his latest sentence in a prison in upstate New York.