Easton-Area Attorney Pleads Guilty to Defrauding Estate Out of Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars

PHILADELPHIA – United States Attorney William M. McSwain announced that Angelo Perrucci, Jr., of Bangor, PA, has pleaded guilty to five counts of wire fraud before United States District Court Judge Joseph F. Leeson, Jr. The charges arise out of Perrucci’s scheme to defraud the estate of a client and its heirs by taking funds from the estate for his own personal use.

The defendant is an attorney licensed to practice law in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In 2015, he was contacted by his former neighbor to provide end-of-life legal services for her ill father. Following the father’s death in early 2016, Perrucci filed a motion in court seeking to be appointed as the administrator of the estate. The court granted the motion, and the defendant opened a bank account in the name of the estate. Within two weeks of opening the estate account, Perrucci withdrew more than $36,000 for his own personal use. He continued this fraud for over three years. Between March 2016 and May 2019, Perrucci fraudulently issued more than 80 checks to himself, stealing more than $300,000 and depleting the estate account.

“Attorneys take an oath to act in accordance with the law – not to use it as a way to manipulate innocent and vulnerable people for personal profit and gain,” said U.S. Attorney McSwain. “Perrucci was entrusted with a sensitive and important task – the care of an estate – and he used that trust to commit fraud and steal from the beneficiaries. This is truly despicable behavior that deserves the full condemnation of the legal community and society as a whole. My Office will continue to target and aggressively prosecute predators like this defendant.”

“The Postal Inspection Service has long investigated those among us who use the mail to commit fraud,” said John Walker, the Assistant Inspector in Charge of the Philadelphia Division of the Postal Inspection Service. “This defendant, a lawyer, used his position of trust and authority in an area of the law many of us don’t fully understand and are not in a position to effectively police to steal money from his clients. Thanks to the hard work of the Inspectors in my office and the attorneys of the United States Attorney’s Office, Mr. Perrucci is being held accountable for his deceitful practices.”

The case was investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service, and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Christopher J. Mannion.