Former attorney pleads guilty to stealing $30,000 from escrow account

Marco Materassi, a former Great Neck attorney now living in Florida, pleaded guilty in Suffolk County Supreme Court to stealing $30,000 from a client escrow account tied to a Lake Grove home sale. Prosecutors said the money was supposed to be held until the transaction closed, then returned when the deal was canceled, but instead vanished into unauthorized personal and business spending.

Materassi, 59, admitted guilt on June 15, 2026, before Justice John B. Collins to Grand Larceny in the Third Degree, a Class D felony. Under the plea agreement, he must pay back the full $30,000 in restitution or face a prison term of one to three years. He has already been disbarred by New York State and can no longer practice law.

According to Suffolk prosecutors, Materassi was hired to represent the seller in the Lake Grove transaction and received the buyer’s $30,000 down payment on January 26, 2024, to keep in escrow until closing. After the deal was canceled, the funds were supposed to be refunded. Prosecutors said Materassi did not return the money and instead avoided calls from the buyer’s attorney, the buyer and the seller while spending the escrow funds within four days.

Assistant District Attorney Tara K. O’Donnell of the Public Corruption Bureau prosecuted the case, and Detective Thomas Monaco of the Suffolk County Police Department’s Financial Crimes Unit investigated it. Materassi is represented by Christopher Gioe, Esq.

The guilty plea followed a June 23, 2025 indictment that accused Materassi, then 58 and living in Dania Beach, Florida, of stealing the same $30,000 over a five-day period in 2024. In that earlier case, prosecutors said he was the former principal attorney at Materassi Legal, P.C., the Great Neck firm listed at 55 Northern Boulevard. Justice Collins ordered him released without bail because the charge was not bail-eligible under state law.

Materassi’s law license had already been stripped by the time of the plea. On June 18, 2025, the Appellate Division, Second Department disbarred him after the Grievance Committee for the Ninth Judicial District brought seven counts of professional misconduct. Court records say the disciplinary petition accused him of misappropriating client funds in four real estate matters and of using accounts labeled “trust” and “attorney escrow” that were not actually proper special bank accounts.

The Suffolk case is not the only one to raise questions about Materassi’s handling of real estate money. In January 2026, Nassau County prosecutors charged him with grand larceny and first-degree scheme to defraud, alleging he withheld more than $133,000 in down payments from multiple home-sale transactions in the Bronx, Queens and Suffolk County between November 2023 and January 2024. Nassau District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly said the allegations reflected a betrayal of client trust tied to an active Suffolk prosecution involving similar conduct.

For Suffolk buyers and sellers, the lesson is blunt: escrow money should not disappear into a law office’s operating expenses, and unanswered calls when a deal collapses are a warning sign, not a formality. Homebuyers and sellers should insist that attorneys identify where escrow funds are held, how they are segregated, and how quickly refunds are issued when a transaction falls through.