After more than four weeks of testimony, perhaps the most closely watched trial in Suffolk County is heading toward the home stretch.

Juriors in the George Guldi trial, taking place at the Arthur M. Cromarty Courthouse in Riverside before Judge James F.X. Doyle, are expected to begin deliberations after the judge delivers their charge this morning.

Emotions were running high on Monday as Guldi, a former Suffolk County legislator and Westhampton Beach resident, wrapped up his case with his summation; after a break Assistant District Attorney Thalia Stavrides followed suit.

Guldi, who is facing four charges including insurance fraud, grand larceny, forgery and criminal possession of a forged instrument, is an attorney defending himself in the case. During proceedings, he took the stand and testified as a witness.

The Rundown

Guldi began his summation with a motion to dismiss, based on number of points. The judge listened to his arguments and said he would read the case law and render a decision should it be necessary moving forward.

Guldi appeared jovial and relaxed as he stood before the jury and began his summation. He thanked the jury for their time and attention during the long trial.

“Happy Valentine’s Day. I can’t imagine a worse place to be,” he joked, saying, “One thing that’s been proven in this trial – I am not a criminal lawyer.”

Getting serious, Guldi, with help of placards, faced the jury and ran down a list of charges he’s facing, and set out to shatter the ADA’s case, which centers around an $863,000 insurance check made out to him and Countrywide Home Loans from AIG.

The prosecution alleges Guldi forged an endorsement and stole the check, depositing it into his account and not telling Countrywide about the transaction.

He addressed the charge of grand larceny in the second degree and re-emphasized a point he’s made numerous times throughout the trial – that he believes Countrywide does not own the $1.4 million mortgage on his home. He says instead, foreclosure action was started not by Countrwide, but by the Bank of New York Mellon, as trustees for the certificate holders who owned the mortgage since 2006.

Also, Guldi said that he paid the fire insurance premiums, which insured his home. And, he added, he had a right to rebuild his home.

In order to prove grand larceny, Guldi continued, “you have to steal from someone who owns” the item under dispute. Countrywide, he said, is “out of business.”

Next, Guldi addressed the charge of forgery in the second degree, stating the DA must prove he acted with intent to defraud, deceive or injure another.

“It was my money, money that I was going to get, anyway,” he said.

Guldi brought up the DA’s forensic expert, a man he said he would call “Mr. One in A Million,” based on a reference the witness made to the fact that there were a million typewriters of the kind located in Guldi’s office.

“Those are the odds of getting struck by lightning or winning the lottery,” he said and added, “There was no evidence of forgery – and it was my money.”

Next, Guldi discussed the other charges and told the jury once again that at the time he was alleged to have endorsed the check and deposited it into a New York bank, “I was gone,” in Vermont. And, the last time he saw the check, Guldi said it bore only his signature.

“So they have an unforged instrument – and me out of town,” he said.

Phone records, he said, indicate that he was not in the area during the time when a conversation testified about by Ethan Ellner – Guldi’s co-defendant in an $82 million mortgage fraud case — was supposed to have taken place.

Discussing the issue of living expenses, Guldi said AIG was obligated to find him a place to live once his house burned down and explained why he chose a property he owned.

After the fire, he said, “I had a choice between the Seabreeze Motel and a full furnished rental my kids felt comfortable in.” As for choices offered in homes, Guldi said he was shown “crap.”

Guldi apologized to the jury for keeping them from their lives at the month-long trial. He also blasted Stavrides for prosecutionary tactics meant to divert the attention of the jury, such as hours of bank transactions meant to illustrate  that he was broke.

"I had $900,000 then. I should be that broke today,” Guldi said.

Other points Guldi discussed were that he believed AIG kept the original check for a reason; he added that the forensic experts testified that no forensic study can be done on a photocopy.

“Who stole from whom?” he asked, giving the jury a timeline, beginning when a search warrant was executed in February 2009 and Guldi’s office and ten men with guns “stripped” his office of everything, including years worth of files.

“They wanted to put me out of business,” he said.

Next, Guldi was arrested and news was leaked to the press and his assets were seized. But, said Guldi, because no insurance charges had yet been brought up, only the mortgage fraud charges, the “seizure was illegal” on that date.

An open criminal investigation of Guldi began based upon information given the DA by Ellner. And, he added it was Detective Nicholas Miceli who called AIG and the Bank of America, not the other way around. Ellner, he said, is “a man lying to save his life.”

Guldi gave the jury a list of questions to ask the judge. For example, he asked the jury why the name of the bank teller who received the check for deposit was never located or asked to testify. He suggested it was because the prosecution did not want the jury to know what the teller would have to say – or that he might say Guldi was not there.

“If Jabba the Hut with pockmarks walked in and deposited an $860,000 check, even without a bowtie, is there any chance you wouldn’t remember me?” he asked.

In closing, Guldi reminded the jury that they are the final voice.

“My fate, my career and the impact on my family on your hands,” he said.

Stavrides’ summation began with the ADA recalling her opening statements during which she said Guldi’s case was one of “broken trust and ill-gotten fortune.” She said that “the road is now paved with a black, hard surface paved with fact,” and the jury must render a guilty verdict. She reminded the jury that the defendant’s summation is not testimony and asked them to disregard what had been said.

The ADA said Guldi never asked Dustin Dente, another co-defendant in the mortgage fraud case, about whether or not he had deposited the check, as Guldi has said. And, she said, although Guldi told the jury he was sorry that the trial had wasted “taxpayer dollars,” the last time the defendant filed tax returns was in 2004.

Stavrides accused Guldi of a host of material secrets kept in bad faith.

Guldi, she said, “acted in bad faith when he stole the check and forged Countrywide’s endorsement. There was no evidence that the check was ever presented to Countrywide,” she said.

She said to the jury, “You now know of broken promises.”

Even Guldi’s estranged wife, she said, “knew Countrywide was the mortgagee;” the insurance policy with AIG listed Countrywide as the mortgagee.

Next, Stavrides blasted Guldi who, she said, knew he was never going to rebuild his home, another “material secret he kept in bad faith.”

With his estranged wife having left two weeks earlier and a girlfriend with whom he was living at 44 Brushy Neck Lane – a property also in foreclosure, despite Guldi’s attempts to garner additional living expenses while he was living there – Guldi “didn’t need the Griffing Avenue house anymore.”

And, she said, if Guldi believed it was okay to keep and deposit the insurance check in his account, why woudn’t he tell anyone?

“He knew not only that it was wrong – he knew that it was criminal,” she said.

Another “material secret,” said Stavrides, was Guldi’s failure to tell anyone that he was three months in arrear on mortgage payments at the time of the trial. Stavrides said Guldi stole not only the $863,000 check from AIG but the proceeds of the $1.4 million mortgage, plus funds for the contents of his home – a total of “$2.4 million in three years.

She said that despite Guldi’s claims that the mortgage was held by MERS, the check was made out to him and to Countrywide.  Countrywide, she said, had a right to the check because of the $1.4  million they were owed.

In addition, Stavrides said when reviewing phone records,  Guldi neglected to mention a number of phone calls that placed him in his office at a time long enough to allow him to type the endorsement on the check and to have the conversation with Ellner.

Harkening the good old days of television shows such as “Bonanza,” Stavrides said those were the times when a man’s word and handshake were signs of honor. “Today, your signature is probably the most valuable thing you have,” she said. “Just as Countrywide’s is to them. The defendant’s signature isn’t worth the piece of paper it’s written on.”

Stavrides went on to slam Guldi, telling the jury that he meant to meet with his friend Donald McPherson, who deposited the check into an account he used often. She used a slide show to demonstrate deposit slips of McPherson’s as well as to show the endorsed check.

And, despite Guldi’s assertion that the DA’s office never took the typewriter, she said it was not seized under the initial search warrant because Ellner did not come forward until later and at that point, the search warrant was not valid. But, the ADA alleged Guldi had “motive and opportunity” to type the endorsement on the check and give it to his friend for deposit, leaving town in case questions were raised later. The check, she said, went into Guldi’s account – she told the jury that he alone spent the contents.

After the jury's dismissal for the day, Chris Brocato, Guldi’s court appointed legal advisor, said Guldi “did a good job.” He said two witnesses, Ellner and public adjuster Bruce Schlosser “flat out lied.” But, Guldi’s phone records prove that phone conversations and meetings they testified to “never happened.”

And, he said, once the ADA fails to prove forgery the rest of the case falls apart.