ATLANTA - A Hoschton man and his co-defendant from Florida will spend time behind bars and pay restitution to their victims in a telemarketing fraud scheme.
Patrick J. Soltis, 47, of Hoschton, and John A. Reece, 57, of St. Augustine, Florida, were sentenced Wednesday by United States District Judge Clarence Cooper to federal prison for operating a telemarketing scheme in Marietta, GA, that defrauded dozens of foreign individuals into investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in bogus companies.
Reece was sentenced to 6 years, 6 months in prison to be followed by 3 years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $582,639. Soltis, who cooperated with the government and received a sentence reduction as a result, was sentenced to 3 years, 5 months in prison to be followed by 3 years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $301,601. Reece was convicted of these charges after pleading guilty on January 11, 2010. Soltis was convicted after pleading guilty on October 15, 2008.
According to evidence, Reece and Soltis lied to investors in 2002 to entice them to invest in a shell company, Wolf & Soltis Holdings, LLC. Through telemarketers they hired to sell the stock in unsolicited transactions, the defendants falsely claimed that Wolf & Soltis had substantial business operations and plans to expand in a number of areas. In fact the company was bogus, had no operations, assets, revenues, or even employees, other than the hired telemarketers.
As part of the scheme, the defendants claimed that they owned a private bottled water company, were involved with the University of Minnesota to develop a tree species that grew more quickly, and owned a cosmetics company for which entertainment personality Raquel Welch was the spokesperson. All of these claims were false. The defendants actually pocketed the lionâ
Monday
November 25th, 2024
4:18AM
