By Dan Murphy
A disgraced attorney, who was raised, lives and works in Westchester, was sentenced to 1-3 years in jail for stealing more than $3.7 Million from eight different clients. Westchester DA Mimi Rocah’s office made the announcement about the sentencing of Laurieanne DeLitta, 51, who lives in Briarcliff and had a law office in Armonk, and who attended the New Rochelle schools growing up.
DeLitta stole from the estates of families who were using their funds to pay for nursing home care for some and for the care of several disabled children, including adults with Cerebral Palsy.
“Attorneys should be held to the highest standards of ethics and integrity,” DA Rocah said. “Ms. DeLitta violated her oath and professional duties in every way when she broke the law and stole from her clients. My Office has no tolerance for such conduct.”
Westchester County Court Judge Barry Warhit agreed to the sentencing of 1-3 years for DeLitta’s crimes, but good reporting from Robert Cox, editor of talkofthesound.com, tells us there is more to this story.
“After the sentencing, Assistant District Attorney Cooper Gorrie, the prosecutor in the case, told the families that Delitta would have to serve the first year but might then be paroled for the remainder of her sentence. He explained that under New York State law one year is counted as 7/8th of a year, so 319 days or about 10.5 months,” writes Cox, (https://talkofthesound.com/2022/09/06/laurieanne-delitta-disbarred-attorney-who-stole-from-children-with-cerebral-palsy-and-the-elderly-sentenced-to-prison/)
Not only were the families who were victims of DeLitta’s crimes not happy with the sentencing, but ADA Gorrie and County Court Judge Anne Minihan, who imposed the agreed upon sentence, wanted a longer jail sentence, with Cox writing, “over what ADA Gorrie told Judge Minihan were the strenuous objections of the People,” and “When Delitta was put in handcuffs shortly at about 11:30 a.m. and remanded to state prison, Minihan looked at the victims and said, “I’m sorry”, in reference to the light sentence.”
While some believe that Judge Warhit gave DeLitta “a light sentence” because she was an attorney, others had just the opposite view. “She should have known better because she was an attorney, and a woman who lived a life of privilledge-living in Briarcliff. She stole from these families for five years, this wasn’t an accident-she knew what she was doing and should have been punished more,” said one Westchester attorney.
In her statement to the court before sentencing, DeLitta said, “I’m sorry your honor. I just want to say that all of these people who are here today are people who in some capacity or another I care very much for and I am so sorry that I abused their trust and I know it’s inexcusable and there’s no no reason. I. It was just too much responsibility and something happened and everything got out of hand and I would never want to hurt them. I told them lies because I wanted to fix it and I wanted to make it true. As I know that probably nobody believes me. I will spend every waking moment of the rest of my life to make it up to these people the best that I can. And I’m sorry to your honor, to Mr. Corrie and to Mr. Siegel and the Court and my colleagues for embarrassing the profession and I’m sorry to my family.”
Judge Minihan had no sympathy for DeLitta, saying, ““Here’s the thing. You can’t do you can’t make it up. Right even if you were to pay back every single cent with interest. You can’t get that back. That’s the thing with trust. … They went to somebody they trusted to do right by them. …I would find it very hard to believe that any of those people will ever go to a lawyer and be able to trust that person again. .. So it’s not just you and it’s not just them. It’s the entire profession. It’s built on trust. It’s built on reputation. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Forever. I mean, when you talk about people who have built a life and saved and saved and saved and in the end, what do they have? They have a house that they’re going to expect that the proceeds from that sale are going to go to their children…They trusted you and you took that money so now it looks like they didn’t take good care of their people… Nothing makes it better.”
Judge Minihan also spoke to the families, “It’s an imperfect system. This was a negotiated disposition. And this is the first that I’m coming into it. And I’m going to impose the sentence that was promised to you but make no mistake, that this is not just… this isn’t money, money is money. And that, you know, this is this is victimization.”
On the date of sentencing, Sept. 6, DeLitta’s attorney was more than one hour late (to add insult to injury). While waiting for her attorney, DeLitta was seen outside the courtroom sobbing and apologizing to the families, who wanted none of it, and did not forgive her.
Cox wrote it correctly when he said that DeLitta “failed to take accountability” for her actions, only explaining that “things got out of control.”
