Federal authorities have accused a disbarred lawyer of stealing $1 million that was awarded to a retired NYPD officer with cancer through the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund.
Gustavo Vila, of Yorktown Heights, was arrested Thursday and charged with theft of government funds, according to a Southern District of New York complaint.
Prosecutors said Vila, 62, represented the first responder from 2012 through at least 2019 as he sought a claim for compensation while suffering from serious, life-threatening medical conditions, including cancer, after rescue and recovery work at Ground Zero.
The retired officer was awarded $1,030,622 through the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund in Sept. 2016.
Vila submitted a claim to the fund on behalf of his client and submitted forms to the fund authorizing it to deposit the compensation award directly into a bank account controlled by his law firm, prosecutors said.
But Vila allegedly never distributed any money owed to the victim, minus attorney fees, and didn’t tell him about the deposit. They said Vila also didn’t inform his client that he had been disbarred in 2015. Instead he “allegedly kept almost the entire amount of that award for himself and used that money for his own personal benefit, including to pay his own taxes,” according to prosecutors.
“Vila allegedly attempted to profit off of the suffering of a retired NYPD officer who risked his life at Ground Zero,” special agent Kenneth Dieffenbach said. “Because of Vila’s alleged greed, the victim never received about $1 million he was awarded from the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund.”
Vila faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
https://1010wins.radio.com/articles/lawyer-allegedly-stole-1m-in-911-compensation-from-officer
