Poker-Playing Sole Practitioner Is Charged in Alleged Mortgage Scam

A New York lawyer who placed second in the U.S. Poker Championship in 2005 has been charged in an alleged mortgage scam.

Sole practitioner Ralph Pecorale of Long Island is accused, along with six other defendants, of grand larceny and conspiracy, reports the New York Law Journal in an article reprinted in New York Lawyer (reg. req.).

The group purchased and sold the same vacant home in Bedford-Stuyvesant home up to five times, using falsified information about the buyer and fictitious documentation, the Brooklyn District Attorney's office alleges in its indictment.

The article includes no comment from Pecorale, who is accused of misleading banks into granting loans on the property. Pecorale is a 1998 graduate of Touro Law Center.