Illegally renting subleased apartments as hotel rooms is nothing new, but Raziel Ofer, who "controlled hundreds of units at swanky uptown addresses" (at Woogo.com), was caught by Manhattan prosecutors because he never paid over $1 million in sales tax to the city and state. D'oh! He also apparently "evaded up to $2 million in other fees"; Ofer pleaded guilty and now faces between 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison. Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau groused,......

This is any credit (or debit) card user's worst nightmare: Dan Kaufman, who manages Blue Pig ice cream, Oven pizza, Busy Chef and Wine Bar in Brooklyn Heights, was arrested for taking $25,000 from customers' credit cards. According to the Post, Kaufman would take "credit card slips from Wine Bar and Oven, and then ran them through again at his Busy Chef stores and an outlet on Court Street, pocketing the dough." Kaufman surrendered yesterday......

Marc Jacobs, who is no angel himself, had a questionable employee managing one of his three stores in the Village. The NY Post reports that 24-year-old Kyle Avila stole approximately $62K from the designer in just 18 months. Gawker notes that the Kansas boy also once posed nude for a Jacobs t-shirt (pictured), so maybe he just felt he was due. It appears no one was the wiser at the 385 Bleecker Street shop, as......

The Brooklyn resident whose name caused him $2.1 million of trouble is still being held at Rikers, but a judge lowered his bail from $1 million to $10,000. Benjamin Lovell, a Keyspan Energy salesman with a bank account of $400, was dubious when a Commerce bank teller told him he had a $5 million account. But he withdrew $2.1 million after bank officials insisted the money was his. Of course, what really happened was Commerce......

If a bank teller told you had an unknown bank account with $5.8 million in it and the bank insisted it's yours, wouldn't you spend it? That's what Brooklyn resident Benjamin Lovell did - and now he's paying. Lovell shares the same name as an employee at Delaware company Woodlawn Trustees. Woodlawn asked that their Lovell be added to a Commerce Bank account with $5.8 million in it, but Commerce somehow mixed up the Social......

It's one thing to believe the the supernatural. It's another to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to a storefront psychic. But that's what happened to a stock trader when he came into contact with Tammy Mitchell, who ran a fortune telling business in Midtown. The Post calls the victim, Douglas Lonneker, a "free-spirited, successful entrepreneur from tony Wilson, Wyo." Apparently last year he visited Mitchell at her East 32nd Street storefront, where she told......

A doctor who practices in NJ with admitting privileges at New York Presbyterian Hospital. His 94-year-old mother. Her $832,453 savings. And a wall collapse in Upper Manhattan. In a case Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau called "a mini-Astor case," Dr. Robin Motz was accused of stealing his mother's savings since 2003. Motz, who pleaded not guilty to grand larceny and money laundering, assumed power of attorney for his mother, Minnie Motz, a retired librarian. According to......

An ex-husband and other acquaintances have been sharing their experiences with the two women accused of robbing open houses in Manhattan and NJ. After a rash of robberies sparked fear in home sellers - and their brokers - the police caught the suspects and Jessica Joyner and Jennifer Jones have pleaded not guilty to grand larceny and other charges related to at least four robberies on the Upper East and West Sides, and will be......

The Department of Education is charging a temp with stealing $50,000 in fake overtime. The tip off? When Tyrone Avila would claim he was working 85 hours a week - when he really supposed to work less than 40 hours a week. The Daily News reports that Avila had been temping as budget analyst for the DOE since 2001, but "he didn't start padding his time sheets until 2005 when his mother-in-law developed mental problems......