DIRTY ATT’Y
Won key lesbian custody case, now disbarred
A REAL ESTATE attorney who won a landmark lesbian custody battle because she was more “responsible” than the child’s birthmother secretly pleaded guilty to scamming clients and was disbarred Thursday — opening a new chapter in the contentious case.
Attorney Allison Scollar and her ex, Brook Altman, started warring over their daughter in 2010 — with Altman, the birthmother, coming out the loser in the fight for custody.
But a month-long investigation by the Daily News later uncovered shocking allegations that Scollar, in her desperation to win full custody of the child, gave at least $125,000 to an Israeli conman — posing as an exMossad agent — who told her he was bribing the Family Court judge deciding the case.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office declined to comment on whether it ever investigated the bribery claim.
But Altman, who has repeated the claim in court, believes it.
“At least I have a chance to raise a daughter who is not going to lie, cheat and steal,” Altman, 52, said Thursday of her now-disbarred former wife. “I’m sorry, but (our daughter’s) in the wrong home.”
Scollar won full custody of their daughter, Harri, in 2012.
The case made headlines because Scollar was the child’s adoptive mother. Altman gave birth to Harri — who is now 11 — thanks to a sperm donation from a close friend.
In her custody decision, Family Court Judge Gloria Sosa-Lintner said Scollar gave the child much-needed structure. Altman was more “self-centered and egotistical,” the judge wrote.
“Altman, who is a film producer, is the freer spirit, more outwardly creative and more laidback parent . . . She behaved more as a friend or older sister to the child than a responsible parent,” Sosa-Lintner wrote.
But it now appears the judge’s perceptions were way off — as Scollar, 55, was busy raiding $2 million from legal clients’ accounts starting in June 2011, right in the middle of the bitter custody case.
In November 2015, Scollar pleaded guilty to grand larceny and mortgage fraud using the pseudonym “Jane Doe.”
She was ordered to pay $600,000 in restitution to clients who hired her to help with real estate transactions but were instead defrauded.
Scollar confirmed that as part of her deal with authorities, she cooperated with a larger investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. into three of her associates, David Katz, Jay Katz and Eli Luski.
The trio raided attorney escrow accounts for $5 million between 2010 and 2016, in a scheme of their own, Vance said.
“I was the cooperating witness for the DA for many years,” Scollar said. “I did something right by taking very evil men off of the streets.”
But Jay Katz, 70, said Scollar was instrumental in the larger plot — and had flipped on the three men to maintain full custody of her daughter.
“She’s a CI,” Katz told The News, using an abbreviation for confidential informant.
“I don’t blame her. She’ll do anything Machiavellian. If that means throwing David and Jay under the bus to win her case, that’s what a mother will do. If she’d been found guilty, she would have lost custody. She did what she had to do,” he said.
Scollar allegedly gave money to a con man who she believed was bribing the judge on her custody case.
That man was Luski, 55, who boasted he was a former Mossad agent who quit after being reprimanded for treating terrorists too aggressively.
As Scollar and Altman’s custody case escalated into a noholds-barred battle around 2012, Scollar turned to Luski for help, according to David Katz.
Katz has said that he acted as an intermediary between the two as they conspired to bribe the Family Court judge. Katz claimed he took five checks from Scollar and gave them to Luski. The money came to a total of $125,000, he said. Texts, emails and copies of checks viewed by The News indicated that money changed hands between the trio during critical moments in the custody battle into 2013.
But the cash likely just landed in Luski’s pockets, according to Katz, who is also a disbarred attorney. The two brothers served between a six months and a year behind bars.
Luski, whose case is sealed, died at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center on Rikers Island on March 24, 2017.
Scollar, who now must face questions about her disbarment in an upcoming custody hearing scheduled for April, said it’s “nonsense” to suggest she tried to bribe a judge.
She insisted the Katzes and Luski extorted money from her by threatening to go public with information that would make her lose custody.
“My daughter and I are hopeful the judge will see people make mistakes,” Scollar said. “My ex will put my daughter in harm’s way to win this battle. It’s all about winning for her.”