A Long Island, New York title agency owner has been charged with stealing more than $870,000 from his escrow accounts

Gerard Timoney, 54, of Rockville Centre, NY, was arrested Wednesday and was arraigned Friday on two counts of Grand Larceny in the Second Degree. Bail was set at $100,000.

Timoney allegedly committed the crimes as owner of Titleguard Land Services, Inc., formerly in Rockville Centre.  Timoney issued title policies on behalf of Stewart Title and Commonwealth Title, and provided services including title searches, certificates, and reports and conducting closings.

But when Stewart conducted an audit in June 2010, it discovered that Timoney had failed to do many of those tasks on 90 transactions dating back to 2007.  In particular, he failed to file mortgages, pay taxes, or record deeds on the transactions.  Instead, he had simply pocketed the money that was earmarked to go toward those recording fees and taxes.  As a result, Stewart had to cover losses of over $600,000.

Commonwealth conducted a similar audit and uncovered that Timoney had pocketed the fees and failed to do the work on an additional 12 transactions in 2008 through 2009. The loss to Commonwealth was more than $270,000.

Timoney allegedly used the money he stole to pay his office’s payroll, pay child support, buy flowers and gardening supplies, make credit card payments, and to maintain his other properties and businesses.