Feds arrest former Brooklyn judge on wire fraud conspiracy charge

BROOKLYN (CN) — A former Brooklyn judge was behind the defense table instead of up at the bench Wednesday after he was charged with scamming real estate investors out of millions of dollars.

Edward Harold King, 72, appeared in Brooklyn federal court alongside his co-defendant, 37-year-old New York City realty investor Sam Sprei, just hours after they were arrested on a wire fraud conspiracy count that carries a maximum of 20 years in jail.

King and Sprei are accused of swindling unsuspecting investors with phony investment opportunities in New Jersey real estate, including by having King illegally act as an escrow agent while he was still on the bench.

According to federal prosecutors in a criminal complaint, Sprei in 2024 presented two investors with an opportunity to purchase commercial real estate in Freehold, New Jersey, through a bankruptcy court auction. He told them that eligible bidders had to first show “proof of liquidity” by depositing funds in escrow — and touted King as both an eligible escrow agent and a sitting New York judge.

The investors put $6.5 million into an account belonging to King, who then transferred the funds to Sprei, the government claims. When they asked for their money back, King and Sprei returned just $1.5 million, keeping the remaining sum for themselves.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Wang said in court Wednesday this is “one of multiple schemes the government has been investigating” against the two defendants.

“As alleged, the defendants stole millions of dollars from investors by cynically leveraging King’s position as a sitting judge to lend false legitimacy to supposed investment opportunities,” Joseph Nocella Jr., the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.

Harry Chavis, special agent in charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, New York, said in a statement the duo’s accused conduct “strikes at the heart of public trust.”

“Today’s arrests send a clear message: Schemes dressed up as opportunity will not shield wrongdoers from accountability,” Chavis said.

Sitting judges are barred from practicing law — including by serving as escrow agents. King resigned earlier this year amid a probe by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which notified him in late 2025 that he was being investigated for “various complaints against him.”

Per a January press release from the commission, King was being probed on claims he “was participating in a scheme to defraud investors and business ventures by improperly receiving escrow funds as an unauthorized party, refusing to return funds deposited into his attorney escrow accounts and transferring funds to unauthorized parties.”

King denied the accusations at the time. Previously serving as a judge on the New York City Civil Court in Kings County, King was appointed as a justice of the Supreme Court in June 2024. He retired on Dec. 31, 2025, and agreed never to seek judicial office in the future, pursuant to the ethics probe.

He is also named as a defendant in numerous civil lawsuits, in which he is accused of defrauding investors in a similar fashion to the tune of more than $11 million in total.

King was released Wednesday on a $250,000 bond. Sprei, who federal prosecutors said has access to “substantial” financial resources, was released on a heftier bond of $500,000 with a GPS ankle monitor.

In a white Henley shirt and black pants, King shook his head at the defense table as Magistrate Judge Clay Kaminsky read the judge-turned-defendant his rights.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Kaminsky told the former jurist.

Neither man, nor their lawyers, commented when leaving court.

The two defendants have thus far only been charged with a criminal complaint, not an indictment, meaning they did not have to enter a plea on Wednesday.

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