Brendan T Guastella Attys

I had originally reviewed this lawyer favorably, took down the review right after the following incident occurred but have found that some of the text of the former review is cached so it comes up with a google search. If I could write a review with no stars or negative stars, I would. Brendan Guastella misappropriated $ 50,000 in [faked] escrow funds he asked that I send in anticipitation of my real estate closing. He started to repay me after admitting to the theft, but about a year ago, he just pooped out and decided he would just try to get away with not paying the remainder of what he owes me from the INSANE theft.
He initially sent me a check that bounced (after claiming to send two other checks that never came). Then he admitted to the theft, admitted he also didn’t have the money to cover what he’d stolen, and he started sobbing on the phone with my husband and me, and said that he had developed an addiction to a hard drug and that was what had caused such behavior but he never once apologized to me. He did beg for mercy (fear of punishment was the only reason he regretted his actions), pleading that I not go to the authorities and allow him to try and earn the money to repay me. His wife also spoke with me and begged me to let him try and pay me back without going to the authorities, I felt terrible for her, she sounded like a such nice person and she was HORRIFIED by his heinous conduct. He also admitted he’d already been disbarred.
Another lovely and honest lawyer helped me get most of the money back but Guastella stopped paying recently and still still owes me just under $ 5000 and that doesn’t include his fee… even though he was disbarred already when representing, came high as a kite to my closing, and then stole from me!!! I can’t believe he was recommended to me by my realtor who himself was a stand-​up guy in all of our dealings, but of course my realtor had no idea he’d been disbarred (my realtor of course felt terrible). I have never in my life met a more toxic, unethical person than Brendan Guastella. Honestly, nobody has come close thankfully. The clincher (as if all of this weren’t disgusting enough) was that he lied and claimed he had been diagnosed with lung cancer!!! Later, after being found out, he changed his story and said he had been diagnosed with «scar tissue around his heart,» but his initial story was that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and was at Sloane Kettering and was not able to get tot he bank in time to access the eskrow funds before my closing and then asked tearfully if I could front the money. I recommended we just push back the closing but he pretended that he just didn’t want to delay it for my benefit (ha!), that he would come directly from Sloane Kettering. All lies. No tests, no diagnosis, no nothing. In retrospect, I’m so so stupid but who would think someone was lying about something like this? Incidentally, at the coop apt closing, thinking he’d just been diagnosed with lung cancer, I ran down to put money in the meter for his Jeep Liberty, I felt so bad for him at the time, worrying about him climbing stairs to the office where the closing was held, I nearly cried while we was signing the paperwork, feeling guilty that I even allowed for him to come when he had just been diagnosed with cancer, thinking he was a saint for coming (even as he was completely frenetic and crazed at the closing, I attributed this to his recent diagnosis). Can you believe what this man did? I have lost sleep trying to figure out how anyone could treat a person like this and feel zero guilt (especially when he knew I only had money for the apartment because my father had just died of leukemia and that I’d been his primary caregiver so lying about having cancer was just beyond evil). I guess, as a metaphor, scar tissue around his heart is what he has.
This happened in November 2008, but as mentioned he still owes me over $ 5000. He actually seemed like a very smart, nice, and compassionate man so I worry that a person as naïve as I was could be similalry duped. For a few years, I just assumed that the drugs ate away at his personality and made him other than himself, and that he’d come out the other side but was too ashamed to reach out to me to apologize, but now I’m certain he’s a truly diabolical person cause who would be able to steal that much from a client who was kind to him and not feel the need to make amends in the form of paying every penny back including the fee? I know there’s Madoff, people have lost much more and then there are people who steal from the poor so I don’t feel uniquely victimized but this experience changed me and made me very untrusting and paranoid about people’s motives. And don’t trust a stranger, do your due diligence, call the NYS bar; when i finally called, they confirmed he’d been disbarred which means if he acts in a legal capacity for you, you aren’t insured by the bar if he steals from you.