Secret society comes up in fraud case
www.nhregister.com - Mary E. O’Leary, Register Topics Editor - July 14, 2007
NEW HAVEN — A phony investment account, named either for a library fund or Yale University’s famous Skull and Bones secret society, is the latest twist in a larceny case brought against a known scam artist.
Most of the 59 alleged victims each lost around $5,000, but one man no longer has an inheritance worth more than $100,000 after he turned it over to Ralph Cucciniello to invest, according to an arrest warrant unsealed Friday.
Cucciniello, 55, of Branford, falsely claiming to be an attorney at the Yale Law School, entrapped mainly Irish illegal immigrants by telling them he had found a loophole in the law that would guarantee them permanent resident cards and charged them an average of $5,000 for the bogus legal work, according to the warrant.
From January 2005 to May 2007, Cucciniello allegedly stole $432,389 from 59 immigrants, with 50 more potential victims out there, according to material found on his e-mail account at the Yale Law School. He has also been charged with racketeering.
Timothy Reardon, supervisory inspector in the state’s attorney’s office, interviewed a male victim on Long Island who, in addition to the $5,000, also transferred $107,389 from Barclay’s Bank to the Washington Mutual Bank in Bridgeport with Cucciniello as the fiduciary agent for the "Russell Trust."
Cucciniello, according to the warrant, advised the man that immigration officials would be checking the account holding his inheritance from his deceased father and he was better off wiring it to the alleged Yale fund, which had a 22.9 percent return.
When the man checked the account in May of this year, he found a balance of $32.12.
Attorney David Fein of Yale University told Reardon that there is a Russell Trust at the law school established decades ago to fund books at the library.
Reardon now feels Cucciniello may have used the name Russell Trust because of its reference to Skull and Bones.
In 1856, William Huntington Russell incorporated Skull and Bones as the Russell Trust, later the Russell Trust Association. The association owns the Skull and Bones building on High Street in New Haven and also owns Deer Island in New York.
The warrant further cites a victim in London, who allegedly sent Cucciniello a check of $40,000 to invest — which she was never able to retrieve.
The warrant confirms that Cucciniello was an unpaid volunteer research assistant to Yale law professor Steven Duke. It said Cucciniello contacted Duke in late 2003 to offer his services in a case where Duke was representing Martin Taccetta, a New Jersey organized crime figure, in a murder appeal.
Duke was the person who requested that Cucciniello receive an identification card, a Yale e-mail address and a swipe card that allowed him to enter the school after hours, according to the warrant.
Cucciniello had previous arrests and convictions in California and New Jersey for grand theft and fraud.
Cucciniello, who is being held in lieu of $3.5 million bail, may be represented by a public defender. He is due back in Superior Court Tuesday, and will answer similar charges in a smaller case in New York Aug. 15.
Jan Conroy, spokeswoman for the Yale Law School, said the school is doing a thorough review of its policies on access to the school in light of the Cucciniello case.
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