James Wong, 38, was charged with practicing as an attorney without being admitted to the bar,…
By Betsy Scheinbart
A Valley Stream, L.I. man was arrested on charges of illegally practicing as an attorney in Jamaica, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said last week.
James Wong, 38, was charged with practicing as an attorney without being admitted to the bar, scheming to defraud and petit larceny. He could face up to four years in prison if convicted, Brown said.
According to the DA, Wong represented a woman seeking to purchase property in Corona and met with her at his office at 159-15 Hillside Ave. in Jamaica, which has a sign outside reading “Quintana Law Offices.”
Wong allegedly agreed to represent the woman in the closing of the sale and to make sure that various housing code violations were removed. He received a fee of $850 to do so, but those services were allegedly never performed, the DA said.
The woman complained to the Grievance Committee for the Second and Eleventh Judicial Districts and was told that Wong was not an attorney. At that point, the matter was referred to the DA’s Integrity Bureau for further investigation.
“Once we received word of the defendant’s alleged conduct, we commenced an undercover investigation dispatching two of our detectives to investigate the matter,” Brown said.
One of the detectives got a job working as Wong’s assistant and the other posed as a client and asked Wong to represent him in a real estate transaction, Brown said.
“According to the charges, both detectives were told by the defendants that he was an attorney,” Brown said.
