Las Vegas couple pleads guilty to embezzling more than $900K from Lynbrook company

Posted

A former Lynbrook paralegal who resides in Las Vegas and her husband pleaded guilty on June 6 to stealing more than $900,000 from a Lynbrook construction company.

Linda Minervi, 53, was employed as a paralegal for Sorbara Construction Corp. in Lynbrook. She was responsible for settling liability construction claims under $10,000 and sent the claimants their settlement checks.

But according to District Attorney Madeline Singas, between October 2009 and November 2015, she embezzled $913,315.89 from the company. To do this, she created checks to pay for claims that did not exist. The owner of the construction company, who did not know that they were fraudulent, then signed the checks.

In the beginning of the scheme, Minervi made the checks out to her husband, Thomas Cacaci Jr. Cacaci, 37, would then cash the checks or deposit them into an account for New York Emergency & First Response Inc., a company that the couple founded in 2010. Both defendants had access to the account.

The couple used the money to purchase a time-share and to fund household furnishings, automobiles, airline tickets, hotel lodging and other daily living expenses.

Their fraud was discovered in November 2015 when the construction company’s office manager became suspicious. He noticed that the amount of checks generated was substantially larger than the amount the company discussed with the claimants. Minervi was then fired.

The couple moved to Las Vegas, and they were arrested by Las Vegas police on Dec. 9. They were then transported to New York to face the grand larceny charges. Singas is recommending that the defendants be sentenced to three to nine years in prison and ordered to pay all of the money back.