Albert Hessberg III, Embezzlement, New York 2024

A former Albany lawyer has been sentenced to 68 months in prison for stealing at least $2 million from his clients and law firm. Albert Hessberg III, 64, a disbarred attorney, was sentenced in a U.S. District Court for his crimes, which spanned over a decade.

Hessberg worked for 37 years in the Albany office of law firm Barclay Damon LLP before being terminated in March 2018. The Syracuse-based law firm discovered that Hessberg had been stealing funds from clients and the firm itself, totaling at least $2,060,803.

Prosecutors alleged that Hessberg stole funds by billing clients and receiving payments for legal services he did not perform, and by using money from one client to replenish the account of another client from whom he had previously stolen. Hessberg also stole payments for legal services that should have been made to Barclay Damon LLP.

“Today’s sentence holds Albert Hessberg accountable for a 12-year crime spree and a staggering amount of betrayal by an attorney,” said U.S. Attorney Grant C. Jaquith. “Lawyers must be held to society’s highest standards, and we will not waver in our efforts to hold them accountable when they commit serious crimes.”

FBI Special Agent in Charge James N. Hendricks added, “Albert Hessberg spent 12 years deliberately stealing from his clients and lying to their families. He showed a despicable disregard for the very oath he took as an attorney and now he’s facing the consequences.”

Hessberg pleaded guilty in May to one count each of wire fraud, mail fraud, and filing a false tax return. He was also ordered to pay $2,638,147.40 in restitution and to forfeit $2,060,803.40 to the government.

United States District Judge Mae A. D’Agostino imposed a two-year term of supervised release on Hessberg. In sentencing him, she noted that he acted in a “ruthless and predatory fashion.”

The case was investigated by the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Barnett. Hessberg was disbarred in June 2019 following an order by the Appellate Division, Third Department, which had suspended him from practicing law in November 2018.

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