Suspended lawyer stole $43K in closing costs from a couple buying Chesco home, DA says
James Vassallo, of Voorhees, also faces similar theft charges in Delaware County for failing to make tax payments, according to court filings.
A lawyer hired to help a Chester County couple close on a home in Downingtown pocketed nearly $43,000 they gave him to pay outstanding taxes on the home and register the deed, officials said Monday.
James Vassallo, of Voorhees, whose law license was suspended in 2018, gave various excuses to the couple for delays in producing the proper paperwork, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. At one point, prosecutors said, Vassallo filed a fraudulent insurance document with the victims’ mortgage lender, citing a policy that did not exist.
Vassallo, 55, has been charged with theft, forgery, and related crimes. He was released after posting $50,000 unsecured bail.
His attorney, Arthur Donato, said Monday that he was reviewing the evidence of the case and would “take appropriate action when the time comes.”
The couple told Chester County investigators that they hired Vassallo in 2023, when they were planning to move from Colorado to Pennsylvania, the affidavit said. They chose him as their real estate attorney on the recommendation of a friend who was a relative of his. At the time, Vassallo owned a real estate settlement firm in Radnor, according to the affidavit.
Months after the couple settled on their home on Welsh Ayres Way in Downingtown, they realized they had never received the deed, and learned that the deed had not been recorded with the county.
When they questioned Vassallo about that, he blamed his receptionist and eventually filed the deed and gave county officials a check for the $15,000 filing fees. But the check bounced because the bank account for Vassallo’s business only had $57, according to the affidavit.
The county’s recorder of deeds sent a letter to Vassallo, but he did not respond, the affidavit said, and the fee remains unpaid.
Investigators also discovered that after the couple purchased the home in May 2023, Vassallo never sent proof of title insurance to the county. A title insurance policy Vassallo sent to the couple’s mortgage company was fraudulent, the document said. And money the buyers had paid Vassallo to settle delinquent taxes owed by the previous owner, as well as other taxes, were not passed onto the county, according to the affidavit.
As Chester County prosecutors probed the case in Downingtown, a similar investigation was underway in Delaware County. There, investigators found that Vassallo failed to pay $9,300 in inheritance taxes related to a home other clients of his had purchased in Norwood in September 2023, according to court filings.
The buyers had put that money in escrow to pay the taxes, but investigators say Vassallo never transferred the money to the county.
In that case, Vassallo was charged with theft and related crimes in Delaware County. He is scheduled to appear in Delaware County for a preliminary hearing in that case on Wednesday.