Law & Order SUV Star Tamara Tunie Allegedly Defrauded By Accountant

Tamara Tunie, an actress on Law & Order: SVU, is seeing crime in real life, according to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr.  That's because Tunie's accountant allegedly stole more than $1.4 million from Tunie. 

According to Vance: 
 
In the early 1990s, Tunie hired Joseph Cilibrasi as her business manager to pay her personal and professional bills and prepare her tax returns. In 2002, Cilibrasi, the owner and president of Cilibrasi & Associates, which provided tax accounting and business management services primarily to individuals and entities in the entertainment industry, secretly opened a credit card in Tunie's name, and then secured his own card on the account by falsely listing himself as her spouse. By 2003, Cilibrasi had begun signing checks from Tunie's business accounts, despite the fact that she had not granted him the authority to do so. In 2006, to make his thefts easier to commit and less likely to be detected, Cilibrasi tricked Tunie into completing a new signature card for her main business checking account by telling her it was instead for a different account. He then added himself as a signatory on the account. For years, Cilibrasi wrote checks to himself, his business, or "cash" from Tunie's accounts. He deposited many checks into his personal account and Cilibrasi & Associates business accounts. Cilibrasi cashed other checks himself, or instructed one of his employees to cash them on his behalf. Cilibrasi also added himself to Tunie's business payroll as an employee and, later, an independent contractor.
 
According to documents filed in court: Cilibrasi also stole approximately $75,000 from Michael Stern, a conductor and the music director of the Kansas City Symphony. Stern had retained Cilibrasi and his business to prepare his tax returns. In April 2007, Stern met with the defendant at his office on West 24th Street to write a check to cover Cilibrasi's fees and make tax return extension payments to the Internal Revenue Service and the Missouri Department of Revenue. Cilibrasi pocketed the tax money, as he had done in 2003 with one of his past clients, Robin Frank Management. In 2004, Cilibrasi pleaded guilty to stealing more than $39,000 from Robin Frank Management, and was ordered to pay full restitution.
 
Approximately $400,000 of the funds that Cilibrasi stole were converted into cash, according to documents filed in court. Cilibrasi used the rest to run his business; take vacations to destinations including Los Angeles, Italy, and Puerto Rico; invest in theater and film projects including Spring Awakening, Legally Blonde: The Musical, and See You in September; and hire a screenwriter to write a script about Bannerman Castle, a historic structure located on Pollepel Island in the Hudson River, Vance alleged.