This story should serve as a warning to all parents of disabled children.....Joe Pisani, Disbarred And Convicted Felon Keeps Trust Funds Of Disabled Child From Her
Court-Approved Theft of a Disabled Child’s Funds By a Convicted Felon!
Most parents feel that the worst thing that could happen to them would be for their child to die before them. But for a sole-surviving single parent of a disabled child, the greatest fear is that something that may happen to themselves, leaving their child uncared for and unprotected. If such a parent dies leaving no other family to care for the child, it is the duty of the state to step in and protect those who cannot protect themselves and who have no one to offer them protection.
But, what if the individuals assigned to protect your child, the lawyers and the courts, are the ones who are victimizing them? A recent Samuel Jackson movie, Lakeview Terrace, about an abusive cop living next door to a young couple asked the question “Who do you call for help when you can’t call the police?” A local mother in Westchester, Andrea Masotti, a sole-surviving single mother of a disabled child, has been asking herself a similar question for the past five years: “Who do I go to for legal recourse, when it’s the courts who are abusing my child?”
Mrs. Masotti approached the Guardian with her incredible story last week. A story that involves top political players, past and present, in Westchester County and Albany; a story that is filled with greed, deception, and plain old-fashioned criminality; a story that actually started long before Mrs. Masotti’s daughter was born; a story that started with one of the most notorious of Westchester’s politicians, Joseph Pisani, Republican ex-State Senator and State Attorney General contender from New Rochelle.
Pisani was a 20-year veteran of the New York State Senate representing New Rochelle, and the surrounding area, while Mrs. Masotti was married to her husband, Vito. She recalls hearing his name mentioned at times in the neighborhood and among her friends and family, but never met Pisani during the duration of her marriage. “My husband was a hairdresser” she told the Guardian. “We ran in much different circles than an Albany politician”. Sadly, Mrs. Masotti’s marriage did not last. But it survived long enough for her and her husband to adopt a young child from Eastern Europe, a child who each parent loved and cared for.
Vito Masotti, being many years older than his wife, fell into declining health in the mid-1990’s, suffering kidney problems and recurring boutsof cancer. During this timeframe, the Masotti’s daughter was also exhibiting signs of cognitive disability and several medical issues. At the initial onset of his own personal health problems, Vito approached his long-standing tax accountant, Frank Marino, a close friend and family advisor, to draft a concise will that would provide for his daughter.
This will, which Vito Masotti drafted in 2001, named several individuals as executors for his daughter’s estate, among them her godmother, an individual trusted by both the child and her mother. Vito emigrated from Italy after the Second World War and applied a hardworking, thrifty attitude towards his work and his new home. Although not highly educated, Vito amassed a sizable fortune in his lifetime, which included an apartment building that was providing $150,000 a year in income at the time his will was drawn. Vito decreed that this income should be for his daughter’s care in her lifetime. In addition, he maintained a two-bedroom apartment in the building which was to be his daughter’s home upon his demise.
Between the income from the rental apartments, and the free rent on her father’s apartment, Vito’s daughter would be well-provided for in her lifetime and would have sufficient income to cover her medical and personal needs. Such was Vito’s intent until Joseph Pisani entered the picture.
In 2004, Vito’s health took a turn for the worse with a relapse of his cancer and the loss of a kidney. At the same time, Vito’s daughter suffered several setbacks complicating her disability and increasing her medical and living costs. Although previously unknown to all the family, Joseph Pisani interjected himself into Vito’s life at this time and somehow managed to convince the dying man to alter his will, nominating Pisani as executor and trustee of a airs and as Vito Masotti’s attorney for child support matters regarding his daughter. Vito Masotti died not long afterwards, leaving Joseph Pisani in control of his entire $1.4 million estate and his daughter’s support.
Since the demise of Vito Masotti, Joseph Pisani has done nothing to assist Vito’s daughter, even refusing to provide her with the basic special education she needs for her cognitive difficulties and denying her medical treatment. Court records filed with the Surrogate’s Court in White Plains document that Joseph Pisani has vigorously opposed support applications for the young Ms. Masotti’s needs and advocated for the removal ofher own mother as her guardian.
Pisani has allowed the rents on Vito’s apartment building that he left for his daughter’s care to decline, and is in the process of trying to sell it. He has not provided any accounting whatsoever to Ms. Masotti, or her mother, as to where any, or all, of the $1.4 million estate has gone. Andrea Masotti, now in her 60’s, confided to the Guardian that she has spent her entire retirement and life savings to provide for her daughter herself and fight for her needs these past few years in an uphill battle in our local courts. Now left with limited resources of her own, Mrs. Masotti is currentlyscrambling to find work to pay for the needs of herself and her daughter.
This case would be horrific enough if it were not for the fact that Joseph Pisani has absolutely no legal authority whatsoever to draft any will, offer himself as an executor or trustee of an estate, or be appointed legal representative for child support issues at all, SINCE HE IS A CONVICTED FELON!
This Joseph Pisani is one and the same Joseph Pisani who was disbarred and removed from the New York State Senate in 1986 on federal charges of mail fraud, income tax evasion, the of client funds, and embezzlement.
And now he’s at it again. But this time, it’s with the Court’s blessings.The history of Pisani’s corruption is a long one. On August 1, 1984, Pisaniwas sentenced to four years in prison and was fined $69,000 on fraud and tax evasion charges by the Federal District Court in Manhattan. The United States prosecutor on the case, Charles La Bella, portrayed Pisani at trial as a public official who “abused his position”.
Among the charges filed by La Bella against Pisani were Law Practice Mail Fraud, Campaign Fund Mail Fraud, Income Tax Violations, Obstruction Of Justice, Embezzlement of over $80,000, Failure To Pay Taxes, and Misleading A Grand Jury. Pisani’s second wife, Kathryn Godfrey, was also charged at the trial with committing Perjury during the grand jury’s investigation of the fraud and tax charges. Ms. Godfrey had been employed as a stenographer for a state commission headed by Pisani before his divorce and their subsequent marriage.
During the course of the trial, La Bella revealed evidence that Pisani embezzled state funds by purchasing a summer home in Washingtonville, New York from a Joseph Mallon and giving him a “no show” state job in exchange. La Bella also charged Pisani with embezzling money from his former law firm and using his campaign funds for his personal needs and those of Ms. Godfrey.
La Bella provided evidence that Pisani used these funds to buy gifts for his then-girlfriend, Godfrey, to take vacations, and invest in professional boxing, while listing these payments as campaign costs on his financial statements......
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