West Hempstead man pleads guilty in house deed scam

A West Hempstead landscaper and a disbarred lawyer pleaded guilty to operating a deed fraud scam in which they used forged documents to take over nine homes of dead homeowners in Nassau and Queens.

Terrell Hill, 40, of West Hempstead, and Russell Carbone, 69, of Far Rockaway, pleaded guilty on Nov. 30 in a scheme to defraud in the first degree and six counts of offering a forged document for filing, according to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.

The court voided the deeds to all the properties involved in the scam so that the rightful heirs could take over the properties, according to the prosecutor.

Hill worked as the spotter in the operation, identifying homes that appeared to be vacant during his landscaping work, according to the district attorney. The homes targeted by Hill and Carbone in Nassau County were on Pinebrook Avenue in West Hempstead and Advent Street in Westbury.

RC Couture Realty Inc., a company run by Carbone, pleaded guilty to possession of stolen property and six counts of offering a forged document for filing.

Hill would approach the would-be heir, offering to get the home out of foreclosure. He would then introduce the family member to Carbone, who served 10 years in prison and lost his law license after presenting perjured testimony in a heroin smuggling case in Florida.

From November 2019 through February of this year, the two men used stolen Social Security numbers, fake notary stamps and forged property tax documents to assume ownership of the property.

Prosecutors said that Amazon shipping records showed that Hill had a notary stamp shipped to his West Hempstead home.

In one case, Hill and Carbone offered to buy the home of a Bronx woman’s deceased brother, according to prosecutors. She turned them down, but in March 2021, a deed transfer document was recorded with the New York City Department of Finance showing that RC Couture Realty and Hill each owned 48% of the property and the woman and her sibling owned 1% each, the district attorney said.

“He just wants to put this behind him and move on with his life,” Carbone’s lawyer, James Kousouros, said.

Hill placed the blame on Carbone when reached by phone on Wednesday. “Obviously, Russ Carbone was the ringleader,” he said.

Hill faces up to three years in prison when he is sentenced on Jan. 30.

RC Couture Realty will be forced to pay a $100,000 fine.

Individually, Carbone agreed to pay $56,960 in restitution — the amount of rent money he collected from the tenants of the ill-gotten properties, according to Katz.