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Personal assistant pleads guilty to stealing $10M from elderly Salomon Bros. exec to buy Louis Vuitton, Gucci

Nypost · · 524 words · By Taylor Herzlich
Trust betrayal in caregiving roles Elderly financial exploitation
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What to know about Trust betrayal in caregiving roles

Personal assistant pleads guilty to stealing $10M from elderly Salomon Bros.

Claims checked 13
Techniques found 0
Topics 2

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center0%
Right100%

1 source compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Personal assistant pleads guilty to stealing $10M from elderly Salomon Bros.

Why it matters

exec to buy Louis Vuitton, Gucci A New York woman who worked as a personal assistant pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $10 million from her elderly employers – a Salomon Brothers banker and his wife – to fund a lavish lifestyle including goods from Louis…

Common ground

From about 2017 through 2024, Catalina Corona, 62, repeatedly deposited hundreds of checks written to cash – made payable to herself – from the late Richard Schmeelk and his widow Priscilla’s accounts to pay her credit card bills and snag high-end goods from…

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://nypost.com/2026/04/09/business/personal-assistant-pleads-guilty-to-steal…

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 13 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

help Insufficient Evidence 9
schedule Pending 3
verified Verified By Reference 1
help
Claim 1: “According to federal prosecutors, Corona started working for the elderly couple in January 2017 and soon started stealing from them by forging checks that were made out to 'cash.'”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in cross-references, web search, or Wikipedia to confirm Catalina Corona's employment timeline or check forgery.
help
Claim 2: “Schmeelk was similarly ripped off by his then-executive secretary, Bebe Fazia Laljie, decades earlier, when she diverted checks that he had signed for his personal expenses for her own use over nearly three years, a New York federal appeals court ruled in 1999.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in cross-references, web search, or Wikipedia to confirm the 1999 federal appeals court ruling against Bebe Fazia Laljie.
schedule
Claim 3: “But that didn’t stop Corona, who kept looting from his widow’s accounts until she was caught in 2024 when a bank employee contacted Priscilla Schmeelk about a suspicious $1,500 check, according to court records.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
schedule
Claim 4: “Richard Schmeelk co-founded his own firm, CAI Managers. He was a World War II veteran who was knighted by Pope Benedict XVI, according to his obituary, and a member of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Fla., club.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
verified
Claim 5: “Richard Schmeelk, who worked for 40 years at Salomon Brothers, died at 97 in May 2022, two years before the fraudulent check scheme was exposed.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia results retrieved were unrelated to Richard Schmeelk's death (e.g., Order of Canada, Madame Tussauds, New York Knicks). No evidence confirms his death in May 2022 at 97.
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — Five honorary appointments to the Order of Canada are permitted per year by the order's constitution. The following is a list of all honorary appointments to date. Names rendered in italics were later…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_appointments_to_the_O…
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — The following is a list of wax figures which are currently displayed or have been displayed at one of the Madame Tussauds museums.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wax_figures_displayed_…
menu_book
wikipedia NEUTRAL — The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks co…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Knicks
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Claim 6: “During her yearslong scheme, she allegedly spent more than $1 million in stolen funds at Louis Vuitton; hundreds of thousands of dollars at both Cartier and Gucci; and $305,000 on Apple products, mostly at stores in Queens and Long Island.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in cross-references, web search, or Wikipedia to confirm spending on Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Gucci, or Apple products.
schedule
Claim 7: “She faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, as well as restitution and fines, according to the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York.”
PENDING
This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.
help
Claim 8: “From about 2017 through 2024, Catalina Corona, 62, repeatedly deposited hundreds of checks written to cash – made payable to herself – from the late Richard Schmeelk and his widow Priscilla’s accounts to pay her credit card bills and snag high-end goods from Louis Vuitton, Cartier and Gucci, according to court filings.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in cross-references, web search, or Wikipedia to confirm the claim about checks deposited between 2017-2024.
help
Claim 9: “On multiple occasions, Corona even started calling the bank claiming to be one of the victims to get information on the couple’s bank accounts, according to prosecutors.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in cross-references, web search, or Wikipedia to confirm Catalina Corona impersonating victims to contact banks.
help
Claim 10: “She also used the money to pay off her credit card bills and book plane tickets, filings stated.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in cross-references, web search, or Wikipedia to confirm use of stolen funds for credit cards or plane tickets.
help
Claim 11: “Laljie was convicted of mail and bank fraud in 1998 at a Manhattan federal court following a jury trial presided over by now-Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She was sentenced to 46 months in prison and restitution payments of $505,532.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in cross-references, web search, or Wikipedia to confirm Bebe Fazia Laljie's 1998 conviction and sentencing.
help
Claim 12: “He was a World War II veteran who was knighted by Pope Benedict XVI, according to his obituary, and a member of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Fla., club.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in cross-references, web search, or Wikipedia to confirm Richard Schmeelk's WWII service or knighthood by Pope Benedict XVI.
help
Claim 13: “A New York woman who worked as a personal assistant pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $10 million from her elderly employers – a Salomon Brothers banker and his wife – to fund a lavish lifestyle including goods from Louis Vuitton and Gucci.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence found in cross-references, web search, or Wikipedia to confirm the claim about Catalina Corona stealing $10 million.
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.