Late last week, a New Jersey attorney who specialized in criminal defense and white-collar crime was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison after earlier pleading guilty to — you guessed it — some white-collar crime.

James R. Lisa, 68, previously pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, one count of obstructing the IRS, one count of failing to file an individual income tax return, and one count of wire fraud while on pretrial release. Lisa was accused of bilking his clients out of $2+ million in funds. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey has additional details:

In 2014, Lisa was retained by a family to help repatriate millions of dollars that had been transferred by other family members to offshore bank accounts decades earlier. Lisa was also retained to help resolve the tax issues related to the repatriation of the funds. In 2015, Lisa successfully repatriated more than $6 million of the family’s funds, but proceeded to falsely advise the family that the funds remained offshore. In 2017, Lisa provided $4 million of the repatriated funds to the family but continued to falsely represent that the remaining $2 million remained beyond his control.

Lisa falsely told the family that he successfully resolved the tax implications of repatriating the funds. In 2016, Lisa sent the family a fraudulent IRS “closing agreement” reflecting an agreement with the IRS for the family to pay $3 million in taxes and penalties for the repatriated funds. In 2018, Lisa sent the family another fraudulent closing agreement reflecting an agreement with the IRS for the family to pay $2 million in taxes and penalties because only $4 million was purportedly repatriated. In fact, the IRS never entered into these agreements and the IRS employees who purportedly signed the documents never did so. When one member of the family was audited by the IRS, the IRS issued Lisa a summons for records related to the family’s assets. In response to the summons, Lisa produced false and fraudulent documents suggesting that the IRS had agreed to closing agreements with the family.

In January 2023, Lisa was arrested after being charged with this fraud scheme and placed on pretrial release. One condition of his pretrial release was that he not commit another crime.

Shortly thereafter, Lisa committed another crime. As noted by the USAO, he applied for a $22,000 loan, and in the process sent a fraudulent letter that was allegedly from his criminal attorney in order to secure the funds. Lisa also admitted to failing to file taxes from 2015 through 2022, causing at least a $550,000 loss to the IRS.

“James Lisa used his law license to execute a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme and rip off clients who placed their trust in him. Then, after being charged for that fraud, Lisa committed another when, posing as his own lawyer, he sent a bogus letter to a lender that falsely described the status of his criminal case,” U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger said in a statement. “Lisa’s multiple criminal acts were serious violations of his oath as an officer of the court and a betrayal of his clients’ trust. The sentence imposed today is his just punishment for these crimes.”

In addition to the prison term, Judge Julien X. Neals sentenced Lisa to three years of supervised release, while also ordering him to $2.05 million in restitution to his fraud victims and $550,000 to the IRS.

Jersey City lawyer gets 5.5-year sentence for defrauding clients out of over $2M [Hudson County View]
Jersey City Attorney Sentenced to 66 Months in Prison for Wire Fraud, Aggravated Identity Theft, and Tax Crimes [U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of New Jersey]

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on X/Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.