Lawyer gets five years for bilking clients, law firm and family

A Center City lawyer who federal prosecutors say fleeced his clients and the now-defunct law firm where he was a partner of more than $2.1 million between March 2005 and December 2008 was sentenced to five years in prison today.

U.S. District Judge Petrese Tucker also ordered Jeffrey Abramowitz, 48, of Plymouth Meeting, who had been free on bail, be taken into custody immediately.

Abramowitz pleaded guilty in September to mail fraud, wire fraud and filing a false tax return for 2007. Tucker also ordered Abramowitz to pay $1.6 million in restitution to his victims and $360,405 to the IRS.

Abramowitz "spun a web of lies, hoaxes and bogus documents" to deceive his victims, Assistant U.S. Attorney Vineet Gauri said in court papers.

In an effort to hide money he stole from clients and his then-law partner, Mitchell Klevan, Abramowitz filed false tax returns for four years, prosecutors said, resulting in a tax loss to the feds of over $360,000. (Abramowitz pleaded guilty to only one tax count for understating his taxable income by almost $253,000 for tax year 2007.)

"Justice was served," Klevan said after sentencing. "This day helped me close a painful chapter in my life."

Gauri said Abramowitz, who specialized in personal-injury law, betrayed the trust that many clients - including his own family - placed in him.

In one example, Abramowitz stole from his sister-in-law and her husband. The government said his sister-in-law, identified as "M.T," withdrew $120,000 of her retirement funds to repay a mortgage after her bank sent M.T. and her husband a default letter in January 2006 for the $120,000 mortgage.

On April 2, M.T. and her husband gave Abramowitz a signed blank check to pay off the entire mortgage.

Authorities said the check was blank because Abramowitz was supposed to negotiate a lower settlement with the bank, and Abramowitz said he didn't know the final amount of the settlement.

That same day Abramowitz made it out to himself for $120,969 and deposited it into his bank account.

Three weeks later, Abramowitz mailed a letter to Bank of America claiming his sister-in-law and husband were still trying to get the funds to pay off the loan, court papers said.

Days later, Abramowitz wired $56,314 to a local car dealership for a new BMW for a favored client, prosecutors said.

Gauri said in a sentencing memo Abramowitz took all of his sister-in-law's and husband's money and destroyed their credit.

Abramowitz also stole $271,736 in legal fees from the firm in which he was a partner, Klevan & Abramowitz, P.C., prosecutors said.

The government said Abramowitz's crimes involved more than 10 victims, and that he knew several of his victims were vulnerable, primarily because they were recent immigrants and had limited English skills or little understanding of the legal process.

Contact Michael Hinkelman at 215-854-2656 or hinkelm@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @MHinkelman.