Nassau DA: Disbarred attorney sent to jail for court no-show

A disbarred attorney who was promised probation for scamming clients was instead given nine months in jail after refusing for more than two years to appear for her sentencing, the Nassau district attorney’s office said Friday.

Reinelda Elizabeth Urena de Checo, 45, pleaded guilty in August 2014 to stealing about $27,000 from clients and would have been placed on five years’ probation for third-degree grand larceny, a felony, if she had appeared for sentencing the following July, authorities said.

But she moved from Freeport to Washington, D.C., and a warrant was issued for her arrest in September 2015. District attorney investigators tracked her down there, and de Checo was arrested Oct. 27, authorities said.

“Instead of a probationary sentence, her effort to evade justice has landed her behind bars,” Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas said in a statement.

De Checo’s attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

She was licensed when she scammed three clients. In May 2013, she represented a client in a property sale, but when the deal fell through, she refused to return the client’s $6,125 deposit, prosecutors said.

After a Hempstead barbershop owner hired her in June 2013, he gave her $10,000 to pay a settlement in his case, but when de Checo mailed an escrow account check to the other party’s attorney, the check bounced, prosecutors said. She did not respond to her client’s calls and letters, they said.

That same month, a Hempstead restaurant owner hired de Checo in a landlord-tenant case and gave her a $10,600 check toward a settlement, authorities said. The attorney told her client to make the check out to her, but instead of putting it into an escrow account, she cashed the check and did not forward the funds. She also stopped answering this client’s calls.

De Checo was also ordered Friday to pay restitution to the three clients. Authorities said she was disbarred on Jan. 29, 2014.