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loria Kubick, 79, and her daughter Maria Bendek, 53, were left devastated when their 61st‑Road house in Kew Gardens Hills vanished from their possession. The loss stemmed from a deed‑fraud scheme orchestrated by 41‑year‑old real‑estate agent Autumn Valeri, who forged documents and tricked the family into surrendering the property that had been in their hands since 1999. Kubick recalled that cherished items—such as her late father’s “Welcome Home Johnny” sign from his World War II return—were taken, leaving the family feeling as if their lives had been erased.
Valeri’s plot involved forging signatures, false deeds, and even a fabricated marriage certificate. She, along with accomplices Carl Avinger, Torey Guice, and Lawrence Ray, submitted these counterfeit papers to the City Register’s office, enabling them to claim ownership of three Queens homes worth more than $3 million. After selling one of the properties for $600,000 in May 2023, they wired roughly $442,000 to Ray’s bank account, a transaction that is now the subject of a civil lawsuit.
On Wednesday, the court handed Valeri a sentence of five years’ probation, the revocation of her real‑estate license, and an order from Queens Supreme Court Justice Leigh Cheng to void the fraudulent deed. No jail time was imposed, a decision that left Kubick and Bendek furious. “I don’t understand how she gets a sentence like this when she’s destroyed people’s lives,” Kubick told the judge, while Bendek described the experience as “like my grandparents died all over again.” The family’s memories, tied to the house’s walls and roof, were stolen, and the emotional toll was immense.
Avinger, already sentenced to 3½–7 years for identity theft, had his grand‑larceny sentence postponed until November 13. The other conspirators—Guice and Ray—have faced separate legal actions. Prosecutors highlighted that the quartet’s scheme also targeted a Jamaica Estates home owned by an 82‑year‑old woman and a 76‑year‑old Queens Village homeowner, forging documents that falsely transferred deeds to a company Ray owned. The victims’ homes were not merely structures; they were repositories of personal history, as Assistant District Attorney Rachel Stein emphasized in court.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that her office would use a local law to nullify the fraudulent deeds on the other two properties once Avinger’s sentencing concludes, thereby restoring ownership to the rightful owners. “Accountability is not the same for every defendant,” Katz said. “The first priority here was to make the victims whole and return their property to them.” The family’s hope is that the legal system will rectify the injustice, even as they mourn the loss of irreplaceable memories and the betrayal by a trusted professional.
