New Haven Independent

The lawyer, Gabriel Cusanelli (pictured), sold the home to former City Hall dealmaker Sal Brancati and a partner in a controversial deal — for, in the view of some observers, less than it might have fetched in an open sale. Cusanelli didn’t disclose that he had former business ties to Brancati and Brancati’s partner.

A public hearing before the Statewide Grievance Committee in Hartford Superior Court Thursday opened the final chapter in a months-long saga about how final wishes get carried out, how insiders get deals and who makes sure benefactors get the money they’re due. The controversy, first reported a year ago in this Independent story, surrounds the dying wishes of the late Margaret Amrich.

Amrich died in Feb. 2005, naming no inheritors. Most of her wealth remained in her two-family home at 18 Cottage St., which she left to the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven for a fund for “crippled children” and children with cancer.

The two major players, Brancati and his business partner Mark Perez, have already been taken to task for shortchanging that fund when they bought the home: They agreed to give back $15,000 of profits they racked up by delaying the closing of the sale.

Thursday was time for the estate’s executor, Cusanelli, to have his day in court.
The New Haven/Branford-based attorney, a quiet man with no disciplinary history, was accused of a lack of diligence in handling the estate. He promptly resigned as executor when controversy erupted around the deal, spurring a visit from Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

Cusanelli sat shoulder to shoulder with his attorney in a carpeted courtroom in Hartford’s community court Thursday morning, awaiting judgment by a panel of his peers.

The state’s chief disciplinary counsel, Mark Dubois, found that Gabriel Cusanelli wasn’t necessarily in cahoots with Brancati and Perez on the Amrich deal — in fact, he ended up suing them. But the lawyer should’ve been more open in citing prior business ties before selling them the estate, Dubois found.

Cusanelli sold Amrich’s home for $250,000 to his business partners Brancati (pictured) and Perez, with whom he had been dealing real estate through a partnership called PCB Ventures, LLC. Cusanelli represented Perez on some other property deals, though they weren’t actively doing business at the time of the Cottage Street sale, whose original closing date was late 2005.

Attorney Cusanelli made “some ill-considered choices” in not disclosing those ties, Dubois told the committee Thursday. Dubois found Cusanelli guilty of violating one rule in the lawyers’ book of professional conduct — failure to communicate, for failing to tell the Probate Court what his former business relationship was with the buyers. Dubois used the word “former client” instead of “business partner,” as did the Probate Court. PCB Ventures LLC hadn’t been dissolved at the time of the sale, but there were no active deals at that time.

Plea Agreement Struck

Cusanelli didn’t speak before the panel of his peers. But in a written statement, Cusanelli signed on with Dubois to a disciplinary plea agreement in which he agreed to an official reprimand for violating the lawyers’ code of conduct.

“I failed to properly communicate with the Probate Court and did not disclose relevant details of my former relationship with the prospective buyers of the Amrich property,” Cusanelli wrote in a sworn affidavit submitted to the Superior Court.

Cusanelli was brought before the panel by an action from the New Haven Judicial District Grievance Panel. The panel filed a complaint last June and held a probable cause hearing in October. It found Cusanelli did try to sell the home at fair market value, and was not responsible for the buyers’ delay. The panel found probable cause that Cusanelli was guilty of both failure to communicate and conflict of interest. Click here to read the finding.

Condemned To Googleability

Dubois, however, agreed to toss out that second charge, which he said would be hard to prove. The failure to communicate offense isn’t the gravest in the book, Dubois said after the hearing, but the reprimand will leave a lasting mark.

“He was wrong, he admitted it, and he has a permanent blot on his record,” said Dubois. “It’ll never go away, and if you Google him, it’ll show up as the first thing.”

The Statewide Grievance Committee took the plea agreement under advisement and will issue a decision on it in the next 60 days.

Blumenthal’s Not Done

Out in the hall, Cusanelli’s lawyer, Fred Ury, defended his client, who’s been in practice since 1987. “He’s a good guy,” Ury said. “He’s been given a bad rap in the press.”

Ury characterized the controversy as a big “nothing” that has now “very much been put to rest.” Attorney General Blumenthal’s threat of filing further action against Cusanelli in Superior Court has not been carried through, Ury noted. “It turned out to be nothing.”

Au contraire, Blumenthal said he’s not finished with the case. In a late afternoon phone call to the Independent, the attorney general said his office is still negotiating with Cusanelli over additional compensation to the Community Foundation.

“We are in negotiations regarding his potentially compensating the charity for the balance of lost earnings that have not yet been paid because he delayed in filing a final account for the estate after the closing date,” Blumenthal said. Cusanelli “failed to invest the proceeds in an interest-bearing account during the delay.”

Cusanelli made voluntary restitution for part of those funds, said Blumenthal, but “we are negotiating with him through his attorney for a settlement.”

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