Salvatore Strazzullo, a lawyer from Bensonhurst who was facing multiple ongoing criminal cases for allegedly bilking elderly clients out of millions of dollars, was found dead in his car in front of his parents’ Brooklyn home Saturday, according to the New York Post.
Emergency responders found Strazzullo unresponsive in his vehicle Saturday and his cause of death was not immediately clear Monday, the Post reported.
He earned his nickname "The Night-Life Lawyer" from a 2012 New York Times profile, as he became famous for representing celebrities that would get into altercations during the early morning hours.
Strazzullo pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of stealing $3.8 million from clients in April 2024, according to Reuters. He used the money to fund trips to Miami and Paris, pay rent on a luxury apartment in Battery Park City and buy a BMW car.
In a separate case, in December 2023, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez indicted Strazzullo with stealing close to $1.5 million from three clients he represented in real estate and estate proceedings.
In this case, the investigation found that Strazzullo represented a 79-year-old woman on the sale of her house on 67th Street in Bensonhurst. The proceeds of the sale were over $1.2 million. After the closing in September 2023, the client asked that the defendant give her the money, but he allegedly made excuses, claimed there were various delays and, to date, has not turned over her funds.
The Brooklyn DA's office also said that another client, an 80-year-old man, was also not paid about $170,000 from a real estate sale on 13th Avenue in Borough Park. A third client said she was owed about $96,000 from Strazzullo.
The investigation revealed that much of the funds that were entrusted to the defendant by the three victims were allegedly used to pay creditors or to pay expenses that had no connection to the clients’ legal matters, according to Gonzalez.
