"ANOTHER LAWYER COMMITS CRIMES"

Charged Lawyer Filched Ward's $70,000.00

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

A Queens lawyer stole $70,000 from a 66-year-old mentally ill woman whom he was appointed to help, prosecutors said yesterday.

Marvin Wolf, 69, was arraigned on a charge of second-degree grand larceny in Queens Supreme Court and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Wolf, who had been appointed as a guardian for the womans estate, “plundered” the victim’s “assets and used the money for his own purposes,” Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

The arrest comes on the heels of a grand jury report this month that called for a complete overhaul of the legal guardianship system, which the report said allows “unscrupu’ous guardians to loot the assets” of the people they were appointed to protect.

After the report, court officials announced a pilot program that will review cases on a random basis in an attempt to oversee the work of court-appointed guardians.

In WoWs case, the victim is so mentally ill that she didn’t even know that the money was missing, according to a law enforcement source.

Wolf was appointed in 1995 as the sole conservator of the woman’s estate. The district attorney’s office was notified after a court-appointed examiner last year found an “apparent irregularity in the financial affairs” of the victim, Brown said.

Wolf, who is semiretired and lives in Florida, flew to New York for yesterday’s arraignment, pleaded not guilty and was released on $10,000 bail.

“In order for him to make restitution, if that’s required, it’s necessary for him to be out of custody,” said his defense lawyer, Steven Wilutis, adding that his client “has never been in trouble at all.”

Wolf is due back in court April 14.

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