Joseph Greenblatt, an Orthodox Jew with a criminal history stretching back over two decades, was sentenced today in a Manhattan court to 6 to 18 years in prison for stealing $32 million in a Ponzi scheme that targeted Orthodox Jews. He was also ordered to pay restitution.
Orthodox Jew Sentenced In $32 Million Ponzi Scheme
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Joseph Greenblatt, an Orthodox Jew with a criminal history stretching back over two decades, was sentenced today in a Manhattan
court to 6 to 18 years in prison for stealing $32 million in a Ponzi
scheme that targeted Orthodox Jews. He was also reportedly ordered to pay
restitution.
In September, Greenblatt pleaded guilty in Manhattan to grand larceny, securities fraud and related crimes in the scheme.
The 50-year-old from Queens ran the Ponzi scheme through Maywood Capital, his real estate investment company that was originally located in Paramus, N.J.
The scheme ran from 1995 through 2004. Most of the victims are Jewish; many are retirees living in various Florida communities. One of Greenblatt’s victims was a Brooklyn synagogue.
"He knew that when I entrusted this money to him, it was for the use of my daughter and disabled former spouse. My former spouse Bonnie is now receiving money from Social Security, food stamps and Medicaid. My daughter is medically uninsured because I cannot afford to pay premiums for her health insurance,” Stephen Coffey, a Sarasota, Florida retiree reportedly said in a statement to the court.
Greenblatt already served seven years in federal prison for defrauding the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2001. He spent $2.3 million of the Ponzi scheme’s money to reimburse the federal government for that scam.
He was indicted by a state grand jury in Bergen County, New Jersey in August 2004 on charges that he wrote $1.9 million in bad checks to investors. He’s due to be tried next year on those charges.
Joseph Greenblatt and his father Max also pleaded guilty in 1995 to criminal charges in Brooklyn in connection with a securities fraud scheme.
[Hat Tip: The Lion.]