By Mary Alice Miller
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced on November 12 that disbarred Brooklyn attorney Sanford Solny, who stole the deeds to 11 residential properties across Brooklyn, primarily from minority homeowners in financial distress, has been sentenced to two and a half to seven years in prison. Corporations he owns were also ordered to pay $120,000 in fines. The defendant falsely promised to help facilitate short sales, but instead transferred ownership of the homes to himself or companies he controlled and collected rent for years.
The deed thefts were part of a decade long fraudulent scheme targeting minority homeowners facing foreclosure.
“This defendant is a serial scammer who deserves every day he will now spend behind bars. He stole valuable homes, as well as the financial stability and integrity of his victims, leaving many in financial ruins,” said District Attorney Gonzalez. “My office investigated, tried and convicted this defendant, holding him accountable and returning the stolen deeds to their rightful owners. We are committed to continue prosecuting deed theft cases vigorously to protect vulnerable individuals from falling prey to fraudsters who seek to exploit high property values.”
The District Attorney said that, according to the evidence, between 2012 and 2022, the defendant, whose law license was suspended in 2012 before he was disbarred in 2023, carried out a fraudulent real estate scheme targeting homeowners in foreclosure. He presented himself as a financial expert who could negotiate with lenders to sell the homes for less than what was owed on the mortgage — a process known as a short sale — to help clients avoid foreclosure. Instead, using an array of false statements, he tricked his victims into unwittingly signing over their deeds to corporations he controlled.
The defendant defrauded 15 victims, many of whom had limited legal or financial literacy by convincing them they were getting help. Instead, the defendant transferred ownership of their homes to his companies and in some cases collected rent from tenants already living there. The 11 properties included homes in Bedford-Stuyvesant, East Flatbush, Canarsie, East New York and Ocean Hill, among other neighborhoods. Victims lost their homes, their equity and, in many cases, suffered damage to their credit as the foreclosure proceedings remained unresolved.
According to prosecutors, at a bench trial before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun, the judge promised at conviction that any sentence he would issue would be no more than seven years. Absent that constraint, the District Attorney’s office would have recommended a sentence of seven to 18 years in prison.
The judge also nullified the deeds to the 11 properties, which were held by corporations the defendant controls, returning them to the defrauded homeowners.
According to The People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft, Solny is linked to the theft of over 240 homes across New York, primarily in Brooklyn and Queens, many of whom may not have their homes returned.
“This is a gross miscarriage of justice,” said Evangeline Byars of the People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft.
Patrice and Wendy Sawadogo had two homes stolen — one in East New York, one in Flatbush.
According to The People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft, the DA now says only the East New York home will be returned, despite the fact that Solny collected rental income from both properties for more than 11 years.
“This is outrageous,” the Sawadogo family said. “Solny stole our deeds and collected the rent. Now they’re telling us we only get one home back? We were defrauded. We deserve both our properties returned.”
“For more than 14 years, Sanford Solny unlawfully controlled our properties, collected rent, and deprived us of ownership. Now, as victims finally awaited justice, our property has been sold out from under us, and we are being served eviction notices to vacate our own homes,” they said.
The People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft—which has been leading the charge against systemic deed and foreclosure fraud— and calling for a Moratorium on all evictions in New York State due to the Deed Theft and Illegal Foreclosure crisis.
The People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft calls for: Full property return to all victims; Reversal of charge reductions; Immediate halt to evictions connected to deed theft cases; and Public accountability from the Brooklyn DA.
A spokesperson fo DA Gonzalez explained underlying factors in the cases that were resolved and unresolved.
“We charged all the cases that we were able to charge,” said the spokesperson.
Other people may have has dealings with Solny, but either they did not contact the DA’s office, or it wasn’t in Brooklyn or it wasn’t a crime.
“Not every transaction that Solny was ever involved with was illegal. He was a real estate person and that was what he did, but some of the things were illegal,” said the spokesperson.
The agreement that all of those victims made with Solny was to give away their property. They made an agreement with Solny to lose their property, and he promised a short sale.
Effectively, they lost their property before they met Solny. For some of the victims, the property was sold by the bank because of the debt on them.
They are asking why they did not get their property back, but the truth is they lost the property before they met Solny. This is why they went into the agreements with Solny, to salvage anything they could from property that was underwater,” said the spokesperson.
Eleven deeds were vacated but not all could get their property back because the bank had already sold some of them. At that point the deed does not belong to Solny anymore, and even though the deed was vacated at that point it was moot.
If someone thinks they are a victim of any kind of fraud, they should contact the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
“If there are any other people, we would obviously look at their cases to see if there is anything we can do,” said the spokesperson. “Remember the statute of limitations is five years on fraud, so some people who think they have been scammed before that time, it is too late.”