Disbarred Attorney Sentenced For Bilking 9/11 First Responder

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, NY — A disbarred attorney will be going to prison for stealing funds awarded to a 9/11 first responder.

Gustavo L. Vila, 62, of Yorktown Heights, was sentenced Monday in White Plains federal court to 51 months in prison. He was also sentenced to three years supervised release and ordered to forfeit more than $992,559.24 and pay restitution to the victim in the amount of $867,870.76.

Vila pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government funds, authorities said.

Audrey Strauss, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Vila stole money awarded by the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund to his client, who is a retired New York City Police Department officer and 9/11 first responder.

"Further, Vila lied to his client for more than three years, telling him that the stolen money had yet to be released by the fund," she said. "Now Gustavo Vila has been sentenced to prison for his betrayal."

According to prosecutors, from about 2012 through 2019, Vila represented the retired officer in connection with his claim for compensation from the Victim Compensation Fund, created by Congress to provide federal money to anyone who suffered harm or was killed as a result of the terrorist attacks or the debris removal efforts in the aftermath.

Vila's client was diagnosed with, and suffered from, serious life-threatening medical conditions, including cancer, as a result of the rescue and recovery work he performed while at Ground Zero.

The entire time he represented the retired officer, Vila told him and the fund that he was an attorney, in spite of having been disbarred in 2015.

Authorities said that, in May 2013, Vila submitted a claim to the fund on behalf of the retired officer and had the resulting money — in the amount of $1,030,622.04 — deposited in October 2016 into an account controlled by Vila's law firm.

Vila was required to distribute the funds to his client, less 10 percent in attorney's fees, once the money had been deposited. Prosecutors said he did not do so.

Rather, Vila kept almost the entire award for himself and used it for his personal benefit, including paying his own taxes, authorities said.

From October 2016 to February, Vila told his client that the fund had not yet released the majority of the award, when in fact it had all been released to his client.

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