A judge on Tuesday offered up to four years in prison to a disbarred lawyer if he pleads guilty to stealing $175,000 from a Shelton developer.
The lawyer, Benson Snaider, 75, of Stratford, has until July 23 to decide whether to accept or reject the offer made by Judge Frank Iannotti at Superior Court in Milford.
The judge’s offer — technically, a 10-year prison sentence to be suspended after Snaider serves four, with five years of probation — includes a right for Snaider’s lawyer, Ira Grudberg, to argue for less or no jail time at sentencing.
Grudberg said Wednesday that it’s “probably likely” Snaider will take the offer.
He said if Snaider pleads guilty in the case, he hopes Judge Iannotti won’t hand down the maximum four-year prison sentence outlined in his offer.
But he doubted Snaider would get a sentence with no jail time, either, as he did in a Stamford case in which he pleaded guilty to stealing $800,000 from a car dealership.
Snaider was arrested by Shelton police last November on a single count of first-degree larceny after an investigation that spanned nearly a year.
The allegations against Snaider, a once-prominent New Haven attorney known for his handling of eminent domain cases, date back to 2006, when Shelton developer Adam Zuckerman sold a parcel of land off River Road where the Crescent Village condominium complex now stands.
During the sale, the City of Shelton took a nearby parcel from Zuckerman’s company through eminent domain, and Snaider represented them.
During that process, $175,000 was deposited into a Superior Court trust account in May 2007.
But the money never made it into the Zuckermans’ hands, according to an affidavit supporting Snaider’s arrest — instead, he told his clients that they could not have it because the case was pending.
Then, in November 2011, the Zuckermans saw a newspaper article saying that Snaider had been charged with stealing $800,000 from a Stamford car dealership in another eminent domain case.
Upon seeing the news article, Jonathan Zuckerman immediately called Snaider, who confessed he had spent the money himself, the affidavit says.
Jonathan Zuckerman then went to the Shelton police station to make a complaint, according to the affidavit.
Snaider had resigned from the bar 22 days before his arrest by Shelton police.
Edmund Collier, a Milford lawyer representing the Zuckermans, said Wednesday that his clients just want their money back, if not through restitution in the criminal case then with a claim to the Judicial Branch’s Client Security Fund.
“Our position is that since he’s not financially in a position to make restitution, we would just like to case over as quickly as possible, because once there’s a guilty finding then we can pursue a claim,” he said. “We’re just looking to get the thing resolved and not drag it out any further.”
Snaider can’t reapply to practice law for 12 years.
A judge who imposed the sanction said Snaider “poses a substantial threat of harm to any prospective client.”
Snaider has since appealed the punishment.
