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Tag: misprision of felony

  • A CHILL ACROSS THE PONZI LANDSCAPE: Two Women Arrested, Charged With Helping Bernard Madoff Pull Off Epic Ponzi Scheme; ‘House Of Cards Is Almost Never Built By One Lone Architect,’ U.S. Attorney Says

    Madoff

    BULLETIN: The FBI has arrested Joann Crupi of Westfield, N.J., and Annette Bongiorno of  Boca Raton, Fla.

    The women were charged with helping Bernard Madoff pull off his Ponzi scheme by both actively participating in and concealing the epic fraud, federal prosecutors in New York said. The women had worked for Madoff for a combined total of 65 years and routinely “executed” client trades “only on paper, based on historically reported prices of securities that they researched in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.”

    “Those trades achieved annual rates of return that had been pre-determined by Madoff,” prosecutors charged.

    The scheme was so foundationally corrupt that Bongiorno “processed exceptional gains in the IA [investment-advisory] accounts that occurred months before the IA accounts even had been established,” prosecutors said.

    Meanwhile, she “also asked IA clients to return previously-issued BLMIS [Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities] account statements so that she could alter them, and often include additional backdated trades. She received specific instructions from IA Clients about the amount of appreciations and gains they wanted to be reflected in their IA accounts,” prosecutors said.

    At the same time, Crupi “prepared and assisted in the preparation of fabricated documents designed to deceive regulators and outside auditors,” prosecutors said. “Among other things, by keeping track of BLMIS’s daily cash balance, Crupi became aware that client redemption requests bore no relationship to [BLMIS’s] cash on hand, which by late 2008 was woefully insufficient to meet those requests.”

    Now, Bongiorno, 62, faces a maximum prison sentence of 75 years if convicted on all counts. Crupi, 49, potentially faces 65 years behind bars.

    “As everyone knows, Bernard Madoff perpetrated the largest financial fraud in history, but as we allege again today, others criminally assisted his epic crime,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York.

    In a comment that could send chills across the spines of Ponzi concealers and apologists across the United States, Bharara added that “A house of cards is almost never built by one lone architect.”

    Crupi and Bongiorno were charged with a series of felonies.

    Among the charges were conspiracy, securities fraud, falsifying books and records of a broker-dealer, falsifying books and records of an investment adviser, and tax evasion.

    “Bongiorno and Crupi were both long-time Madoff employees who played vital roles in the scheme and its concealment,” said Janice K. Fedarcyk, FBI assistant-director-in-charge. “We knew early on that a fraud of this scale could not have been the work of one person alone.”

    Both defendants “personally benefited” from the fraud, prosecutors charged.

    Bongiorno stacked the deck in her own favor by creating “numerous backdated trades in her own IA accounts,” prosecutors said.

    “From 1975 to 2008, [she] deposited only approximately $920,000 into her own IA accounts; however, she withdrew more than $14 million during that same time period,” prosecutor said, adding that Bongiorno also received “more than $325,000 in off the books income” from the scheme — on top of her salary.

    Crupi “received payments of more than $2.7 million from Madoff directly out of the [BLMIS] bank account that held investor funds,” plus more than $270,000 in off-the-books income,” prosecutors charged.

  • BULLETIN: Woman Who Did Not Report Ponzi Schemer Richard Piccoli Sentenced To 18 Months In Federal Prison For ‘Misprision Of Felony’ And Tax Charge; Kathleen Fuoco Turned ‘Blind Eye’ To Fraud, Prosecutors Say

    BULLETIN: In a case that could send shockwaves across the culture of promoting scams and accepting payments from scams, a New York woman who turned a blind eye to Richard Piccoli’s long-running Ponzi scheme in New York state has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for misprision of a felony and willful failure to file tax returns.

    Kathleen Fuoco, 60, of West Seneca, N.Y., pleaded guilty to the charges in June. She was sentenced today in Buffalo. Piccoli, 83, was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year. He became infamous in the Buffalo region for targeting people of faith in the scheme.

    Fuoco knew Piccoli was operating a scam, but did not report him, prosecutors said in June. Her failure to report the scheme brought about the misprision charge and also resulted in an agreement with prosecutors in which a financial judgment of $25 million would be placed against Fuoco, the total amount of restitution due victims.

    Piccoli operated a firm known as Gen-See Capital Corp., and directly targeted Christians and senior citizens.

    “Our seniors and clergy are absolutely pleased with Gen-See’s Re-Investment Program,” Piccoli said, according to marketing materials gathered by investigators as evidence in the case.

    The Piccoli prosecution was brought after an undercover sting by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the IRS.

    After Fuoco’s guilty plea in June,  U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul said “the public should know that if you attempt to defraud any hard working citizen or turn a blind eye while someone else is committing fraud, you will be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

    Hochul built on his earlier remarks after Fuoco’s sentencing today.

    “The best defense for investors is to conduct your own due diligence and research,” he said. “When unscrupulous defendants take advantage of others through fraud, however, my office stands ready to bring the full force of law to punish the crime.”

    Misprision of felony is a charge that serial promoters of online scams such as autosurfs, HYIPs and 2×2 matrix cyclers potentially could face. The schemes proliferate in no small measure because promoters who play dumb to the fraud create the conditions that make it possible for the “programs” to go “viral” on the Internet.

    Some promoters help fuel scheme after scheme after scheme, perhaps saying later that they were surprised the programs proved to be fraudulent.

    Such bids to create plausible deniability have been unmasked by the U.S. Secret Service in a number of investigations since 2008. In some cases, the agency has used undercover identities to join the schemes and later advised federal judges that the agents were instructed by members of the schemes to avoid using certain phrases in sales pitches to minimize the chance of getting caught.

    In certain undercover operations, the Secret Service revealed it had agents in rooms or venues from which scammers were delivering sales pitches to an audience. Some schemers have been kept under surveillance for weeks by agents.

    Court documents in the alleged AdSurfDaily (Florida) and INetGlobal (Minnesota) Ponzi schemes — and in the alleged Regenesis 2×2 (Washington state) Ponzi scheme — show that agents moved from location to location and even city to city to build evidence against Ponzi schemers.

    Meanwhile, court documents show that undercover Secret Service operatives and their state law-enforcement colleagues even have posed as interested investors and walked right through the front doors of offices operated by suspected fraudsters.

    Court filings in the alleged Legisi Ponzi scheme brought by the SEC show that the behavior of the alleged schemer changed after he came to understand he was under investigation — a development that allegedly led to even greater chicanery to hide the scheme.

  • ‘SURF, HYIP HELPERS BEWARE: Woman Who Let Richard Piccoli Pull Off Ponzi Scheme Hit With $25 Million Restitution Order; Kathleen Fuoco Pleads Guilty To ‘Misprision Of Felony,’ Faces Prison Time, Fine

    An elderly Ponzi schemer who fleeced Catholic priests, parishioners and senior citizens in a long-running scam in Buffalo was aided by a comparatively youthful assistant who was ordered to make the victims whole, federal prosecutors said today.

    Kathleen Fuoco, 60, of West Seneca, N.Y., pleaded guilty today to misprision of a felony and willful failure to file tax returns while she was helping Richard Piccoli, 83, pull off the scheme.

    Fuoco was hit with a $25 million restitution order — the total of victims’ losses — and also faces a maximum penalty of four years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. She is cooperating with prosecutors to identify victims and losses, authorities said.

    “Financial fraud is an important priority in my office and the public should know that if you attempt to defraud any hard working citizen or turn a blind eye while someone else is committing fraud, you will be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law” said U. S. Attorney William J. Hochul of the Western District of New York.

    Known as “Kitty,” Fuoco was “the only employee in the offices of Gen See Capital,” Piccoli’s business, prosecutors said.

    “In her plea, Fuoco admitted that she came to realize that the business was a scam, but still kept working there and failed to notify authorities about the criminal nature of the business,” prosecutors said.

    Misprision of a felony is a crime the government can use to prosecute underlings who engage in willful blindness and participate in an enterprise even when they know it is a fraud.

    As the Fuoco case demonstrates, the penalties can be steep. At age 60, she has been held responsible for making the victims of the fraud whole — and even may serve time in jail.

    Serial promoters and staff members of autosurf Ponzi schemes and HYIP frauds who turn a blind eye potentially are at risk of being charged with misprision of a felony. So are forum operators and shills who flog such programs.

    The Piccoli scheme operated for decades. He was sentenced in October 2009 to 20 years in prison — effectively a life sentence, given his age.

    Here is how “misprision of felony” reads under Section 4 of the U.S. Code:

    “Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”

    In November, misprision of felony was used in Georgia against Saundra McKinney Pyles, who was accused of concealing a Ponzi scheme operated by her friend, Gary Sheldon Hutcheson. Hutcheson pleaded guilty to mail fraud and money laundering.

    In essence, Pyles was accused of choosing not to report Hutcheson, even though she knew he was operating an investment scheme and committing mail fraud.

    Pyles was sentenced to 14 months in prison, and made equally responsible with Hutcheson to pay $1.6 million in restitution to victims. Hutcheson was sentenced to five years in prison.

    Fuoco is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 22 by Chief U.S. District Judge William M. Skrenty.

    The Piccoli case featured elements similar to the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case: a senior citizen as the operator, appeals to religion, the sale of unregistered securities, commingling of funds, seized assets and advertising materials that promised a payout.

    After the U.S. Secret Service raided ASD in August 2008, some participants loyal to ASD President Andy Bowdoin started an autosurf known as AdViewGlobal (AVG). Bowdoin was said to have been a silent partner in AVG and to have contributed start-up capital.

  • ‘MISPRISION OF FELONY’: Could It Be Used In Autosurf Ponzi Cases? Feds Trot Out Old-Fashioned Law To Combat Ponzi Epidemic; Georgia Woman Gets Jail Time

    It’s called “misprision of felony” under Section 4 of the U.S. Code, and here’s how it reads:

    “Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”

    It has been used as a weapon in certain drug cases involving violence left unreported, and in cases against public employees who did not report crimes.

    And today “misprision of felony” was used in Georgia against Saundra McKinney Pyles, who was accused of concealing a Ponzi scheme operated by her friend, Gary Sheldon Hutcheson. Hutcheson pleaded guilty to mail fraud and money laundering.

    In essence, Pyles was accused of choosing not to report Hutcheson, even though she knew he was operating an investment scheme and committing mail fraud.

    Pyles was sentenced to 14 months in prison, and made equally responsible with Hutcheson to pay $1.6 million in restitution to victims. Hutcheson was sentenced to five years in prison.

    Do autosurf promoters who turn a blind eye to fraud or choose to become a participant in a wink-nod Ponzi enterprise now have something new to worry about?

    Watch the video on 13WMAZ-TV.