Tax lawyer may have owed millions
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. - William Parente was a successful Manhattan lawyer who apparently had a side business lending money at high interest rates, deals that may have cost investors as much as $20 million.
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. - William Parente was a successful Manhattan lawyer who apparently had a side business lending money at high interest rates, deals that may have cost investors as much as $20 million.
The revelations about his financial dealings came not long after the tax lawyer fatally beat and asphyxiated his family last weekend in a Baltimore hotel room, then took his own life, leaving few clues behind.
"What he did to his family is unforgiveable," attorney Steven B. Drelich, whose law partner contends he invested $450,000 with Parente, said yesterday.
The FBI and New York attorney general said they were investigating allegations that Parente, 59, was in a financial bind and may have owed millions to investors who are only now beginning to suspect they were scammed.
Drelich's partner, Queens lawyer Bruce Montague, 47, learned Tuesday that two of six checks he recently received from Parente had bounced. The losses from the two checks totaled $245,000. A short time later, Montague began hearing media reports about the deaths of Parente and his family, and he contacted authorities.
Despite suspicions about the shady investments, Baltimore County police said a motive for the killings was still unknown. "We have not reached that determination and we may never reach that determination," Cpl. Mike Hill said yesterday.
The bodies of Parente and his wife, Betty Parente, 58, and daughters Stephanie, 19, and Catherine, 11, were discovered Monday in a hotel north of Baltimore. The couple and their younger daughter were in Maryland to visit Stephanie, a sophomore at Loyola College in Baltimore. The family lived in Garden City, a New York City suburb on Long Island.
Betty Parente and the daughters died of blunt-force trauma and asphyxiation. Parente died by cutting himself, but Hill declined to elaborate.
