Brenda Stearns, former paralegal for Richard H. Holtzberg in Rochester New York, is a liar and in my opinion assisted in the real estate scam of stealing money from investors committed by Millie Salisbury.
Mr. Holtzberg, at that time, was the attorney for Millie Salisbury whom I thought was a real estate broker doing business as Salisbury Enterprises of Upstate New York. I had wired money to this office for earnest money deposits for real estate investment properties on August 7.
Eventually many problems about the contracts and the deposits came up and I became suspicious. After some phone calls I discovered that my deposits were not on file as claimed in the contracts by Millie.
On August 23 I called the law office of Holtzberg and spoke to paralegal Brenda Stearns. I asked her for an accounting of my funds that had been disbursed through the Holtzberg office. Brenda told me that she would get that account ledger to me in a few days as she was going to be out of the office. I waited, heard nothing and called again leaving messages.
Mr. Holtzberg eventually called me and I followed up with an email stating that Brenda had told me she would be sending me my account ledger. Nothing ever happened. I called again and I spoke with another woman named Georgie telling her I was waiting for the ledger. I then received a faxed letter stating that, yes, the office had received my money but no accounting ledger to show how the funds had been disbursed and to whom as I was told by Brenda that I would receive.
Brenda Stearns lied. I did not receive the account ledger in a few days after I spoke with her back on August 23. I finally received an accounting of how my funds were disbursed on October 21 after two months of waiting and in my opinion experiencing a postponement strategy of excuse after excuse that the money would be returned soon. Concealment? I'll let the readers of this complaint decide.
The accounting ledger did confirm my suspicions that Millie Salisbury was running a real estate scam and stealing money from investors. See the complaint on Millie Salisbury here— http://usacomplaints.com/reports/0/474/ripoff0474979.htm
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In the meantime even though both attorney Holtzberg and Brenda Stearns paralegal were alerted to the problem with my funds through my phone calls and emails I learned yet another investor had been ripped off as well. This investor had over $40,000 disbursed in the same manner through the months of August and September.
In fact $22,000 of that $40,000 was written in checks to Millie's assistant Julie through Holtzberg's law office within a four week period. Remember this was during the time I was being told that my money would be returned soon. I personally spoke with Julie after I received my account ledger and she told me that Millie had no bank account and the checks were written through the Holtzberg law firm payable to her (Julie) and then she handed over the cash to Millie.
Because of Brenda Stearns lie and not handling this in a professional and timely manner it's my opinion Millie was able to commit the fraud and so far has gotten away with it. No money has been returned.
Anyone who enters into a contract that involves money should google the names involved and use the services of complaint to file a complaint if they are scammed. I found that the authorities of law enforcement and government regulatory agencies in Rochester and New York state were of no assistance at all.
I am posting this complaint to help other people avoid being scammed by having a false sense of security about the honesty or ethical behaviors of people working in the legal or real estate field.
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