Christopher Reese, Fraud, New York 2025

East Meadow, New York resident Christopher Reese, 57, was convicted of fraud and unauthorized practice of law in a federal court in New York.

According to the indictment and evidence presented at trial, Reese ran a scam targeting federal inmates, their family members, and friends, promising favorable results in criminal cases that he could not actually obtain. He worked without the supervision of a licensed lawyer and offered services that only a lawyer is authorized to provide, including drafting and submitting legal filings in federal courts.

Reese styled himself as a 'legal assistant' or 'paralegal,' but his unlicensed legal practice was illegal. He induced victims, including criminal defendants and their family members, to pay him thousands of dollars per legal filing, promising that defendants would be 'immediately released' based on motions Reese would file in exchange for fees in the thousands of dollars.

When his motions were unsuccessful, Reese kept the money. He also laundered the proceeds of his scheme by using a co-conspirator to engage in financial transactions designed to conceal the source and movement of the fees Reese collected from his victims.

Reese earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from this scheme, and he committed additional crimes in connection with these fraud proceeds. He made false statements to the U.S. Probation Office and was on supervised release in connection with a separate federal criminal case in this District during most of the scheme.

Reese will be sentenced on June 26, 2025, by U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for wire fraud, four years for unauthorized practice of law in a federal enclave, five years for making false statements to the U.S. Probation Office, and an unspecified sentence for conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/christopher-reese-convicted-fraud-and-unauthorized-practice-law