Frank J Castucci

I hired Mr. Castucci several years ago to manage a fraud case. He was personable, responsive and supportive before I sent him my payment. However, as soon as he got my money, he dropped from view and I found it almost impossible to get him to respond to my inquiries. I hired him over the internet,... conducted research with the NJ Bar, ABA and elsewhere and found only one complaint about his service. So surprising considering the they way he ended up handling my case. Before we inked our deal, he told me he would have a complaint filed within a week. In fact, it took him almost 4 months to serve the defendant. He was so unresponsive to my inquiries and flippant about handling my case, I find it almost impossible to believe that others don't have similar complaints. But, that's the good part of the story. In fact, it's the lies and intentional case mismanagement which compromised my ability to collect from the defendant which created havoc. Mr. Castucci claimed that he filed my case. However, when I asked him for a court assigned case number, he never responded. So, I researched and called the court myself. They told me he hadn't filed the paperwork properly and that "there was no case". The NJ Court had sent the paperwork AND his check for the filing fee back to him, requesting that he resubmit the case with the correct paperwork. I notified him about this situation and it took him 3 weeks to respond - after numerous attempts to contact him. Finally, he told me that "this happens all the time. The Court screws up" and that he'd rectify the situation. For two months, I chased him trying to get the case filed. He continually told me that the case WAS filed, but no one at the court could find the case. AND the paperwork from the defendant's council lacked the case number as well. Finally, after 2 months, he fabricated a story that I might likely have to pay $30,000 in legal fees from the defendant if I didn't drop the case. I was so fed up with his handling of the case, that I told him to give me my money back and drop the case (which he did by the way). To this day, I have no idea why he handled my case this way, but I can only assume there were some backroom dealings (there were some very strange coincidences - ie defendant 'discovered' that the complaint was about to be filed 5 days before it was mailed in). I recommend that you run from this lawyer as fast as possible. This is ONLY my opinion, but I promise you, this is the way my case went down. Seven months after hiring him, he dropped my case, returned my money and that was the end of it. No case was ever filed according to the NJ Court and Mr. Castucci could never prove that he filed the case (which would have been possible with a cancelled check for the filing fee). Beware.