Latest news with #Koryl
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Yahoo
Long time Falls lawyer gets jail term for stealing from clients
LOCKPORT — A once prominent Falls attorney left the Niagara County courthouse in Lockport in handcuffs on Wednesday. New York State Court officers put the cuffs on Robert Koryl after Erie County Court Judge Suzanne Maxwell Barnes, sitting in as an acting Niagara County Court judge, sentenced him to a 6-month jail term, followed by 5 years of probation, for his conviction on charges accusing him of stealing cash from his clients. He could have faced a possible prison term of up to seven years. Koryl is also required to repay $169,063 in restitution to his affected clients and he will be stripped of his license to practice law. He had been serving a term of interim probation, in an effort to give him time to pay back the clients he stole from. But prosecutors said he has so far paid back little, if any, of the stolen money. Koryl, 69, of Youngstown, pleaded guilty in August to two counts of third-degree grand larceny and two counts of fourth-degree grand larceny in connection to the alleged theft of client funds as part of a plea deal with Niagara County prosecutors. He admitted to stealing cash from his clients that was supposed to be held in his attorney trust fund. A Niagara County grand jury originally returned a six-count indictment that charged Koryl with one count of first-degree scheme to defraud, two counts of second-degree grand larceny, two counts of third-degree grand larceny and one count of fourth-degree grand larceny. He pleaded not guilty to those charges. Koryl had been free on his own recognizance prior to his sentencing. Niagara County District Attorney Brian Seaman said the case represented a violation of the public's trust. 'When people go to a lawyer's office to deal with complicated financial matters, they put themselves in the trust of that person,' Seaman said. 'An embezzlement by a lawyer is not just a theft, it is also a violation of a fiduciary duty that does harm to the (legal) profession as a whole.' Koryl practiced out of a Pine Avenue law office and his Martindale-Hubell and profiles show that his work was largely involved with personal injury cases. He was arrested in late June 2023 and originally charged in Falls City Court with one count of second-degree grand larceny and one count of third-degree grand larceny. Prosecutors charged that Koryl 'stole money belonging to his clients that he was supposed to be holding in his attorney trust account between 2016 and 2023.' Investigators from the district attorney's office said they began looking into Koryl after receiving a complaint about his handling of clients' funds. Seaman has confirmed that Koryl was accused of defrauding five individual clients.
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Meta Hires Former RealReal CEO to Help Sell Its Smart Glasses
(Bloomberg) -- Meta Platforms Inc. has hired the former chief executive officer of luxury goods marketplace The RealReal Inc. to boost its retail sales channels for Quest headsets, smart glasses and other artificial intelligence wearables. Progressive Portland Plots a Comeback Why American Mobility Ground to a Halt SpaceX Bid to Turn Texas Starbase Into City Is Set for Vote in May Saudi Arabia's Neom Signs $5 Billion Deal for AI Data Center Cutting Arena Subsidies Can Help Cover Tax Cuts, Think Tank Says John Koryl is joining the social networking giant as vice president of retail, reporting to Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, the company said Friday in a memo to employees. 'It's no secret that products like Quest, Ray-Ban Meta, and AI wearables require a different kind of customer experience beyond the standard retail offerings,' Bosworth said in the memo. 'We see an opportunity to build more direct expertise in the space and then share what we have learned with all of our retail partners who will continue to drive the bulk of our sales volume.' A Meta spokesperson declined to comment. As the Menlo Park, California-based owner of Facebook and Instagram invests heavily in AI-enabled hardware, it has sought to create compelling retail spaces to promote and sell its products. Last year, for example, it introduced Meta Lab, an in-person space where consumers could try out and purchase its Ray-Ban smart glasses, which evolved into a Los Angeles-based storefront. Meta said at the time that it had dedicated more than 50 employees to test new engaging retail experiences to promote the products. 'I want people to come away from Meta Lab feeling like, 'Wow, these guys are serious about this,'' Matt Jacobson, the company's creative director for augmented reality, said in November. 'We can't scale a hundred of these, but we can build a few of them at locations around the country, and then fill in if we decide we want to do more first-party retail.' Koryl's hiring signals that Meta will continue to invest in the retail experience. The e-commerce, marketing and retail executive took the helm of The RealReal, an online marketplace for luxury fashion, in February 2023 and served in the post through October 2024. Before that, Koryl worked at companies including Neiman Marcus Group LLC, Williams-Sonoma Inc. and eBay Inc. Meta, which has spent tens of billions of dollars on its Reality Labs devices unit since 2019, is seeking to ramp up sales. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg signaled to investors late last month that he remains bullish on the business opportunities posed by augmented and virtual reality. Bloomberg News reported in January that Reality Labs is continuing to developing a fleet of futuristic products, including Oakley-branded smart glasses for athletes, watches and camera-equipped earbuds. The Undocumented Workers Who Helped Build Elon Musk's Texas Gigafactory The Unicorn Boom Is Over, and Startups Are Getting Desperate Japan Perfected 7-Eleven. Why Can't the US Get It Right? The NBA Has Fallen Into an Efficiency Trap Elon Musk's DOGE Is a Force Americans Can't Afford to Ignore ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Sign in to access your portfolio
