METAL MORON
S.I. lawyer busted in scrap iron scheme
A SLIMY Staten Island lawyer was hit with federal charges Friday in a plot that involved defrauding scrap metal buyers and extorting a co-conspirator at gunpoint.
Richard Luthmann, the 38-year-old attorney for the state Reform Party, was slapped with an 11-count indictment for the bizarre scheme that began in the summer of 2015.
Luthmann and two others are accused of raking in more than $500,000 by promising to ship valuable scrap metal to companies seeking the materials, but instead sending them containers filled with cheap filler products.
To pull off the fraud, Luthmann registered fake companies, including one called Omni Metal Corporation. The lawyer also roped in one of his clients — who was blind and living on public assistance — to be the president of the bogus firm, prosecutors said.
Between October and December 2015, the defrauded firms wired more than a half-million dollars into accounts set up by Luthmann’s client, prosecutors said.
Luthmann (photo) was so proud of his criminal ways he often referred to himself as Saul after the corrupt lawyer Saul Goodman from the hit TV shows “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul,” according to his detention memo.
One of Luthmann’s partners in the scheme was George Padulla III, a 29-year-old Staten Island man who was said to have a father and uncle in the mob.
The plot took a frightening turn when Luthmann asked the unnamed collaborator to meet him at his law office to sign paperwork on Dec. 5, 2016, court documents say. Luthmann was nowhere to be found when the co-conspirator arrived at his office. The man reached out to the lawyer who told him to wait inside a conference room, court documents say. Soon after, Padula and his “muscle,” a Staten Island man named Michael Beck who was said to be a mob enforcer, burst into the room and blocked the door. Beck, 59, whipped out a gun and pointed it at the co-conspirator’s head and knee, saying the man owed him $10,000, court documents say. Beck told him a convoluted story that he had bought the man’s $7,000 debt owed to Padula and had added a $3,000 interest payment, court documents say.
Federal agents arrested Luthmann, Padula and Beck early Friday. They were charged with kidnapping, extortion and brandishing a firearm, among other charges.
A fourth man, Stephen Cotogno, 48, was also busted in the scheme.
The New Jersey man was charged with renting his warehouse to the suspects and helping them identify and acquire filler material.
A judge remanded Luthmann, who made headlines in August when he was unmasked as the dirty trickster who created bogus Facebook accounts to slime Staten Island politicians.
Luthmann’s spurious social media accounts painted fake claims against city councilwoman Debi Rose, former state assembly candidate Janine Materna and Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon.