Ex-Suffolk Legis. George Guldi reports to federal prison after conspiracy, bank fraud conviction
Former Suffolk County Legis. George O. Guldi at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead in July 2017. Credit: James Carbone
Ex-Suffolk County Legis. George Guldi, convicted last year of federal fraud charges, reported to a prison medical center this past Tuesday for a 3-year sentence after a judge denied his latest health-related request to delay his surrender.
Guldi in January 2023 was found guilty by a Manhattan jury of fleecing a mortgage lender out of more than a quarter-million dollars while incarcerated in state prison for an earlier fraud scheme. Guldi, 70, originally from Westhampton Beach before moving to Ludlow, Vermont, was convicted of federal conspiracy and bank fraud and wire fraud charges. Co-defendant Victoria Davidson, his ex-girlfriend, was also found guilty of bilking the lender.
Guldi was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in August. Hellerstein permitted Guldi to delay his surrender date four times since his sentencing for medical reasons, but denied the most recent request, which Guldi said was needed for him to undergo spinal surgery on Tuesday.
“This latest request for an additional delay appears to be just another means to push back Guldi’s appearance at the designated prison facility,” Hellerstein wrote in one-page March 18 decision. “Guldi makes no showing of why this surgery could not have happened earlier during the many months of delays that I granted him, and so the request is denied.”
Hellerstein noted he had also denied Guldi’s earlier requests to be released on bail while he appeals the case.
Guldi reported to FMC Butner, a prison hospital center in Butner, North Carolina, on March 19, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
Guldi’s attorney Ian Marcus Amelkin said he was disappointed in the judge’s decision considering Guldi’s condition. His attorneys have said in court filings Guldi has a degenerative disc disease that results in limited mobility and functioning.
“We continue to believe that Mr. Guldi is innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted, and we remain deeply disappointed in the verdict, the sentence, and now this most recent decision to send an elderly and infirm man to prison when he has a meaningful chance to win his appeal," Amelkin wrote in an email.
The judge noted in a March 11 court filing he considered Guldi’s health condition in sentencing him to 36 months. The sentence was “appropriate,” Hellerstein said, and less than the 46-to-57-month sentence called for under federal guidelines.
Guldi, a Democrat, was a legislator from 1995 to 2003.
According to federal prosecutors, in February 2017, while incarcerated in upstate Marcy Correctional Facility on separate insurance fraud charges, Guldi enlisted Davidson to fraudulently recover a $253,236 payment from JPMorgan Chase to Guldi’s mortgage lender, Ditech Financial LLC. Davidson called Ditech at least 19 times and “told multiple lies in an attempt to obtain the funds,” saying she was an attorney, an officer at Guldi’s company and that Guldi had “accidentally” sent the funds to Ditech, prosecutors said.
Vera Chinese covers Suffolk County government and politics. She joined Newsday in 2017 after working as an editor for the East End lifestyle publication northforker and a general assignment reporter for the New York Daily News.
