Queens real estate scam unraveled by woman suspicious of con man’s cheap suit

An ill-fitting suit on a fast-talking lawyer made Laura Gayle suspect she was about to be scammed out of her late father’s home — a smart instinct that sparked a Queens District Attorney’s Office probe that ended with two con men convicted of stealing nine houses from right under their owners’ feet.

Gayle and her siblings were looking for a way to get out from under the debt of their father’s foreclosed house in South Jamaica. An unexpected telephone pitch by one of the scammers, Terrell Hill, at first seemed like an answer to their problems.

But when Gayle sat down with Hill’s accomplice, Russell Carbone, at a Starbucks on Sutphin Blvd., she got a bad feeling.

Carbone had $5,000 cash in an envelope and a persistence that made her uncomfortable — and he was wearing a rumpled, mocha-colored suit that looked like it had been slept in.

“It looked two sizes too big for him,” Gayle said. “It wasn’t tailored to fit and it was wrinkled. It was very ill-fitting. I always remembered hearing that when a lawyer comes in with a bad suit, you know you’re going to jail.

“When I saw that I said, ‘OK — this isn’t going to go well.'”

Gayle listened to Carbone’s pitch, which included the promise of a $15,000 check “if you sign these papers right now.” She then left the meeting, called the first real estate lawyer she found on Google, and explained what had just been proposed.

“Don’t do it,” that lawyer advised after Gayle sent him photos of the documents Carbone had given her.

“It’s a scam.”

The documents would have given Hill power of attorney privileges and control of the home, on 116th Road near 155th St.

Gayle then contacted authorities, sparking a probe that identified numerous other victims.

Carbone, 69, a disbarred lawyer, and Hill, 40, a landscaper, pleaded guilty Nov. 30 to engaging in a scheme to defraud and to offering a false instrument for filing. RC Couture Realty, run by Carbone and his wife, Galyna Couture, also pleaded guilty to possession of stolen property and to filing a false instrument. Galyna Couture was not charged separately as an individual.

RC Couture Realty must pay a $100,000 fine and Carbone must pay $56,960 — a total representing the rent he collected from properties stolen, the DA’s office said.

Hill is expected to be sentenced to three years in prison at a hearing set for Jan. 20.

As a landscaper, Hill got information about apparently vacant homes that he handed on to Carbone, said Queens DA Melinda Katz. The men then checked whether the homeowners had died, and whether their heirs had taken title to them.

The suspects then went to work writing papers meant to obtain ownership of the properties, with the help of forged signatures and notary stamps bought online in the names of actual notaries, prosecutors say.

“They took advantage of people who had their properties in estate,” Katz said. “That’s why it’s so important to keep track of the properties you inherit because even if you want nothing to do with the property it doesn’t mean someone isn’t taking advantage of the situation.”

Though Gayle sensed a problem right away in her dealings with Hill and Carbone — and never signed the documents they provided her — they still took ownership of her dad’s home by forging her signature on ownership transfer papers.

Gayle, whose father was a fire safety inspector before he died of a stroke in 2012, can’t believe how easy it was for someone to steal the home.

“It was very shocking to me,” said Gayle, 36, a flight attendant who now lives in Georgia. “The house meant a lot to my father. It was his first house. He loved it. It’s scary to think that someone can use your signature — and the signature they used doesn’t even look like my actual signature — and steal your property.”

Prosecutors were able to invalidate the fraudulent documents linked to Hill and Carbone and returned the “stolen” homes to Gayle and seven other victims. The ninth victim got their home back under a separate legal process under New York law.

The other properties taken by Hill and Carbone include six in southeast Queens — in Jamaica, Laurelton and St. Albans — as well as two homes in Nassau County, in West Hempstead and Westbury.

Carbone and Hill could not be reached for comment, and lawyers for both men didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Carbone was disbarred in 2001 after he was convicted in Miami Federal Court for having the sister of an accused heroin smuggler lie on the witness stand. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the case.

Deed theft is a growing problem, authorities say.

The New York City Sheriff’s Office counted nearly 3,500 complaints of deed theft throughout the five boroughs from 2014 through 2023, including more than 1,500 complaints in Brooklyn and 1,000 in Queens.

Katz said preventing deed theft is difficult, given the amount of personal and residential information publicly available.

But she said homeowners who sign up for an alert on the Automated City Register Information System (ACRIS), a property ownership database, will be notified if scammers try to transfer their deeds, take out mortgages on their properties, or attempt other fraudulent activity.

Property owners should also contact authorities if they start getting bills for a service they never signed up for, especially if the bill has someone else’s name on it.

“That can happen in today’s world,” Katz said. “So people must be careful when it comes to their homes.”

Gov. Hochul last month signed a law meant to expand prosecutors’ ability to protect homeowners from deed theft, by expanding their power to stop wrongful eviction proceedings and bar enhancing their ability to invalidate fraudulent ownership documents.