Rockland lawyer admits residency fraud for judgeship

Lurlyn Winchester broke the law so she could have a job to uphold the law, officials said.

The New City lawyer has admitted to lying to mortgage lenders and the FBI in 2013 and 2014 about living in Monroe so she could work as a town justice in the Orange County town, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Winchester, 59, pleaded guilty in White Plains federal court on Thursday to charges of making false statements to a lender and obstruction. She will be sentenced on Aug. 28.

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Winchester has been free on $50,000 bond since her arrest on June 7, 2017, court records show. She declined to comment when reached by phone on Friday afternoon. Her lawyer, Deveraux Cannick, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Winchester had been accused of lying to obtain a loan to buy a condo in Monroe after she was elected as a town justice there, even though she lives in New City. Officials said she then lied to the FBI when its investigators questioned her about the scheme.

"Winchester's lack of integrity and honesty did not merit a term on the bench. Her crimes will likely earn her a term in prison," Geoffrey S. Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement on Thursday.

Winchester was elected as a town justice in Monroe on Nov. 5, 2013, a position that required her to live in Monroe. That same month she began the process of trying to buy a home in Monroe, and she eventually secured a loan to purchase a condo in town in April 2015, officials said.

Officials said they discovered, though, that Winchester never moved to her Monroe condo, and that she was still living in her New City home, which she told mortgage lenders she was going to rent out. She told the mortgage lender on her loan application that she would have income from that rent, officials said.

Winchester never rented her New City home out, though, and provided a fake lease agreement and fraudulent rent checks to mortgage lenders and the FBI to make it seem as if the home had been rented out, officials said.

Twitter: @MattSpillane