David Vyner made a career out of ripping off members of the South Florida Russian community, investigators said.
The Russian immigrant claimed he was a lawyer and could fix immigration issues for immigrants who were dealing with U.S. Government regulations. The only thing he fixed was his pockets, the Broward Sheriff's Office claims.
Vyner, a 35-year-old who has gone by several Russian aliases, turned himself in earlier this week on fraud charges after months on the run.
"This guy has been scamming since the day he got into the United States," BSO detective John Calabro said. "This guy is in real hot water."
One of the Russian nationals scammed, Sergey Ponyatovasky, claims he paid Vyner more than $200,000 for legal help.
Vyner got very little done for Ponyatovasky, attorney Myles Malman said. Invoices show Vyner's company, EAIT Services, accepted Ponyatovasky's payments on an American Express Card. The EAIT payments are listed as "Legal Services."
"He could file papers but he could not go to court," Malman said.
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Vyner, who also has gone by the names Bagrat Mochkarovsky and Bagrat Ambartsumyan, posed as an attorney even after he was busted by the Florida Supreme Court in 2005.
He was slapped with an injunction not to practice law in the state. But Russians kept contacting Vyner, who kept posing as an attorney. Sometimes he pretended to be a doctor, Calabro said.
"It is a case of an ethnic community trusting one of their own," said a person close to the case. "He took advantage."
Vyner appeared in bond court Wednesday where a judge set his bail at $900,000.
