DeGrasse sentenced to state prison | South Salem NY Homes

South Salem resident Frank DeGrasse recently began serving a state prison sentence after pleading guilty to three felony fraud charges in Westchester County Court.

On March 9, Mr. DeGrasse, a Lewisboro resident since 1992, was given indeterminate sentences of 16 months to three years in state prison for one of the felony charges, and one year to three years for the other two charges, according to the Westchester County district attorney’s office, but he is serving those terms concurrently.

Mr. DeGrasse was sentenced as a second-felony offender because in 2007 he pleaded guilty to grand larceny in Suffolk County, although he served no jail time. The sentences that he received were partially dictated by the second-felony offender status, according to the district attorney’s office.

In October in White Plains, Mr. DeGrasse pleaded guilty to scheme to defraud, which landed him the first sentence, as well as filing a false return and criminal tax fraud.

Mr. DeGrasse had previously claimed that he was wrongfully accused after he was handed a 31-count indictment for fraud in April 2011 for allegedly defrauding 10 people between 2008 and 2009.

A disbarred attorney and a former New York City police detective, Mr. DeGrasse was arrested in 2009 for criminal possession and identity theft, which led to further investigation, according to police. The charges in Suffolk County were related to allegedly stealing illegitimate mortgages, orchestrating phony real estate deals and fooling lender banks into issuing loans.