From How to Get Out of Debt It was announced on January 9, 2012 that Jennifer Kirk was sentenced to 188 months (almost 16 years) in prison for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud when Kirk victimized consumers in a timeshare telemarking scam . Kirk will also serve five years of supervised release after the completion of her prison term, during which she is forbidden from the involvement in any telemarking industry and she must pay a $15,000 fine and a $100 assesment. Kirk bilked over 22,000 victims (in all fifty states, D.C., Puerto Rico, all ten Canadian provinces and the Northwest Territory of Canada) of around $30 million in her telemarking scam where she promised consumers she could resell their timeshares. Kirk pled guilty on June 30, 2011, to a criminal information which alleged that she operated Universal Marketing Solutions and later Creative Vacation Solutions in Palm Beach County, Florida between October of 2007 and December of 2009. She employed telemarketers who placed cold calls to timeshare owners and then falsely represented that their company had actual buyers for the owners’ timeshare property. Her telemarketers then solicited advanced fees of up to several thousand dollars from each victim in purported closing costs that they promised would be refunded to the owner once the closing on the property occurred. Despite collecting fees from 22,000 victims, her companies were not successful in selling a single timeshare unit , the Information alleged. Kirk, and her co-conspirators, the Information alleged, simply pocketed the closing costs. Several others have been charged in Kirk’s telemarketing scam. On August 17, 2011, a federal grand jury charged Ryan Brazel , Brian Morris and Steve Folan in a multi-count indictment for their involvement in the alleged scheme. Joel Intravaia pled guilty to conspiracy in an information filed on August 19, 2011. He was sentenced to 60 months imprisonment and three (3) years supervised release on December 9, 2011. Ralph Johnson entered a guilty plea to conspiracy charges filed in a criminal information on September 8, 2011. He was sentenced on December 16, 2011, to 46 months imprisonment and two (2) years supervised release. On September 21, 2011, Kenneth Foote and Joseph Grizzanti were indicted by a federal grand jury in East St. Louis. On October 7, 2011, each filed a consent to transfer their case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in order to plead guilty to the charges there. Sentencing for Foote and Grizzanti is scheduled for March 30, 2012, in the Southern District of Florida. Jeffrey Tracey Fields was charged with conspiracy in a criminal information on October 25, 2011. He filed a consent to transfer his case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in order to plead guilty to the charges there. John Thomas Egan pled guilty to conspiracy charges filed in a criminal information on January 6, 2012. His sentencing is set for April 16, 2012. In a related prosecution, Darnel Disroe , Michael Lentine , and Michael Starace were each convicted and sentenced to prison for their role in the operation of Real Timeshare Marketing, another timeshare resale scheme operating in Palm Beach County Florida. The indictment charges that Real Timeshare Marketing was a spin-off of Kirk’s Creative Vacation Solutions and used the same fraudulent sales pitch. Lentine was sentenced on January 7, 2011, to 51 months imprisonment and five (5) years supervised release. Starace was sentenced on January 28, 2011, to 18 months imprisonment and five (5) years supervised release. On May 6, 2011, Disroe was sentenced to 121 months imprisonment and five (5) years supervised release. So far, eleven (11) individuals have been charged in connection with the operation of Creative Vacation Solutions and Universal Marketing Solutions. The investigation is continuing into those timeshare resale scams. “Our office has an established track record of targeting and dismantling criminal organizations, wherever they are located, that prey on unwary consumers,” said U.S. Attorney Stephen Wigginton. “We hope to continue to get justice for the American consumer by working closely with our partners, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Federal Trade Commission and state Attorneys’ General,” said Wigginton. “Florida will not tolerate people who prey on those trying to sell their timeshares,” stated Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. “This case is a great example of law enforcement working together to protect consumers” – Source. If you have been scammed and would like to file a scam report, please click here . Source:
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From How to Get Out of Debt On January 6, 2012, Alton Milton pleaded guilty to wire fraud in connection with a yacht-investment scam and could face between 27 and 33 months in prison with three years of supervised release and ordered to pay over $886,000 in resitution. Milton admitted the details of his crime before the Judge last week. In approximately May 2004, Minton entered into a business venture with two other individuals, identified only as “Person A” and “Person B”, to start YachtOne Holdings, LLC, a company that offered clients the ability to purchase fractional-ownership shares in one or more yachts. With fractional ownership, a purchaser gets the right to certain limited use of the fractionally owned asset – in this case, a yacht – similar to the way a traditional time share works. Unlike in a time share, however, a fractional-ownership purchaser actually buys part of the asset itself, not just the right to use the asset . A yacht was later purchased, and Minton began working for the company, principally as a marketer seeking clients to purchase fractional-ownership shares in the yacht. Ultimately, the company was not successful and failed to sell any legitimate fractional-ownership shares in the yacht or to make any profit. Despite the legitimate failure of YachtOne Holdings, LLC, and unbeknownst to his business partners, Minton during the same time was soliciting investors to “invest” in a similarly named, but fraudulent, company referred to as “YachtOne, Inc.” As part of that fraud, Minton represented to investors that “YachtOne, Inc.” (sometimes referred to simply as “YachtOne”) was seeking investors to provide funds for the company’s operating and capital expenses, including purchasing yachts. He also told some investors that their investment was a loan that was guaranteed to be repaid in currency or stock by a date certain. As the fraud developed, Minton later told some investors that YachtOne, Inc. was going to be acquired by one or more successor companies, including Innovate, Inc., Lakeside Financial, Inc., or Federated Purchaser, and that investors would still be repaid in currency, stock, or both. To receive investor funds without his other business partners knowing, Minton set up separate “YachtOne, Inc.” bank accounts that only he controlled. As Minton admitted at the hearing, no legitimate, legally formed entity named “YachtOne, Inc.” ever existed, and neither of Minton’s business partners in the legitimate YachtOne Holdings, LLC was aware of the so-called “YachtOne, Inc.” or its separate bank accounts. Moreover, the legitimate entity, YachtOne Holdings, was a limited liability company and, as such, was not incorporated, was not set up to issue stock, and was not designed for any type of investor participation. Further, contrary to his claims, Minton did not use investor funds for the purposes stated but instead used the majority of those funds for his personal benefit and to pay his own personal past debts – Source . If you have been scammed and would like to file a scam report, please click here . Source:
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