Man who scammed Treasury agrees to pay back $425k
He served about two years for helping to steal $9.4 million from the state Treasury, but when it came to making restitution, disbarred lawyer Richard C. Arrighi said he was flat broke.
"Mr. Arrighi has a '0' net worth," his lawyer, Joseph J. Balliro Jr., wrote in papers filed with the court yesterday.
Not so, lawyers for Attorney General Martha Coakley responded. And they presented proof: Internet pictures of the community in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where Arrighi and his wife live. The house, which Robin Arrighi bought in 2005, is worth more than $1.5 million.
Prosecutors also learned what cars the Arrighis have been driving: a 2006 Jaguar, a 2007 Hummer, and a 2008 BMW valued at more than $70,000.
Yesterday, facing a possible return to jail, Arrighi acknowledged in Suffolk Superior Court that he had violated his probation by failing to pay his restitution, and agreed to come up with the $425,560 he owes by Nov. 5.
"When you have a risk of incarceration, especially for a gentleman like Mr. Arrighi, you reconsider your position and do whatever's necessary," Balliro said afterward.
Judge D. Lloyd Macdonald ordered prosecutors to audit financial statements Arrighi filed with the court to ensure they are accurate, as the 50-year-old erstwhile lawyer had claimed under oath.
The court battle is "emblematic of the difficulties that the Commonwealth faces in its ability to collect restitution," Coakley said in a statement last night.
What makes the Arrighi case striking is the stark disparity between the picture he painted of his finances and what prosecutors presented to the court.
Arrighi, who played a key role in the largest theft of state money in Massachusetts history, served nearly two years of the three-year prison sentence he received in September 2001. He paid $100,000 in restitution shortly after his release and continued to make payments averaging about $250 a month, according to his lawyer and prosecutors.
He should have been paying $7,333 a month to make full restitution during his five years on probation, as required by the court, prosecutors said.
Over the summer, after paying a total of about $114,000, Arrighi told authorities that he had $15,800 to his name, including a bank account, jewelry, and clothes. He said he could come up with only about $30,000 more in restitution, including borrowed money, and asked the court to forgive the remainder of his debt.
His wife, he said in a recent court filing, runs a real estate investment company that has been reeling from the collapse in the market. He said she has defaulted on millions of dollars in loans.
But prosecutors using Google and real estate websites quickly came up with assets they said Arrighi can put his hands on.
They also discovered that the couple had recently obtained a $350,000 line of credit.
According to prosecutors in 2001, Arrighi and two codefendants devised a scheme to steal money from a Treasury account that holds the unused checks of companies that do business with the state. 