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Former Florida Businessman Robert Shapiro, 62, plead guilty in September to income tax evasion and wire and mail fraud and was sentenced to 25 years in prison this week for a ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 8,000 investors of $1.3 billion.
The U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga sentenced Shapiro to 25 years in prison despite the defense arguing that he deserved far less for his work in assisting authorities in untangling his crimes. Shapiro’s Woodbridge Group of Companies, located first in Boca Raton and then later in Southern California, defrauded investors for 6 years, telling them that, “the companies held third-party real estate loans that would pay them high interest rates.”
Shapiro had a network of agents working on behalf of the Woodbridge Group of Companies, selling the investment as safe and secure.
The case revealed, however, that the real estate either did not ever exist or it was owned by Shapiro. The real estate portfolio did not earn enough to pay the investors and instead, Shapiro used funds from new investors to pay the interest to old investors.
Shapiro and co-conspirators then used the money for personal use. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Roger Cruz and Lisa Miller wrote, “Shapiro’s profit was not coincidental, but rather by design. The entire point of the complex conspiracy that blossomed at Woodbridge was to enrich Shapiro, his family members, and his co-conspirators at the expense of the investors and the International Revenue Service.”
More than 6 victims of the ponzi scheme testified against Shapiro, describing how they lost significant savings and calling him a “thief.”
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