Brooklyn court employee indicted for stealing $69,000 from the public

February 28, 2023 Rob Abruzzese

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. Eagle photo by Mary Frost

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DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — A Senior Court Analyst from the Kings County Clerk’s Office was indicted by District Attorney Eric Gonzalez on Monday and arraigned on charges that she stole more than $69,000 by allegedly voiding court fees and pocketing the cash.

Lori Argiro-DiPietro, a 55-year-old Staten Island woman, was indicted on 47 counts for allegedly stealing more than $69,000 from the Kings County Clerk’s Office. She was charged with grand larceny, tampering with public records, falsifying business records, offering a false instrument for filing, and official misconduct for voiding cash transactions for court filings and pocketing the money.

“This defendant’s alleged theft is a betrayal of the trust of her employer and the public,” said District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. “We will now seek to recover the funds allegedly stolen from the court and hold this defendant accountable.”

“We appreciate the hard work of the Office of Court Administration auditors and the support and efforts of the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office to further investigate and prosecute this case,” said Sherrill Spatz, inspector general for the NYS Unified Court System.

After working for the Unified Court System for 37 years, Argiro-DiPietro retired on August 10, 2022. This came after a routine audit by the NYS Unified Court System’s Internal Audit Services office of the financial records and internal controls of the Kings County Clerk’s Office, which focused on the cash receipts and disbursements of KCCO’s Cashier’s Office.

According to prosecutors, the thefts occurred between January 2020 and August 2022, with the defendant allegedly voiding at least 436 cash transactions.

Prosecutors said that the defendant voided cash transactions related to the filing or obtaining of court documents, such as divorce or business certificate filings, and then kept the money. Despite filing the documents or providing copies to the customers, she allegedly voided the transactions in the court’s records to cover up the theft of $69,515.50.

After appearing before Kings County Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun on Monday, she was released without bail and ordered to return to court in April. The case was investigated by the New York State Unified Court System Inspector General’s Office and is being prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Public Integrity Bureau.