204 South Main Street, Room M01 South Bend, IN 46601
| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | CONTACT: Mary L. Hatton | |
| JUNE 24, 2008 | Phone: (219) 937-5603 | |
| Fax: (219) 852-2770 | ||
| PRESS RELEASE |
The United States Attorney’s Office announced that on June 23, 2008, Perry F. Motolo was sentenced in the Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division, to 294 months’ imprisonment. He was also ordered to pay millions of dollars of restitution to the victims of his crime.
Motolo pled guilty to the 27-count indictment which charged him with 21 counts of mail fraud (18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 2), two counts of tax evasion (26 U.S.C. § 7201) for tax years 1999 and 2000; two counts of willful failure to file tax returns (26 U.S.C. § 7203) for tax years 1999 and 2000; and one count of money laundering (18 U.S.C. §§ 1957 and 2).
Motolo targeted senior citizen clients, representing that he would set up trust accounts in order to protect their assets and provide investment income. Motolo convinced his clients to fund the trust accounts by transferring their assets into his control. He failed to set up trust accounts and instead transferred most of the clients’ funds into a brokerage account he controlled. Motolo used the proceeds from the brokerage account to pay for personal expenses. Motolo advised his clients that his dealings with them had to be confidential so that the trust would be preserved. Motolo lulled his clients into believing that he had created trust accounts that produced investment income by sending via the postal service and commercial carriers various checks, money orders, and correspondence about their purported investments. The true source of the payments to the clients was funds deposited by new clients and intended by them to fund trust accounts on their behalf.
Motolo incorporated various business entities, including Estate Administrators, Inc. and LLC, which he used as nominees in order to evade the assessment of income tax and to willfully fail to file tax returns. During the tax years 1999 and 2000, Motolo filed no income tax returns. Motolo evaded the assessment of income tax by diverting client funds from the brokerage account he controlled and held in a nominee name and by placing and holding properties in a nominee name. Finally, Motolo used $176,094.41 in proceeds from the mail fraud scheme to satisfy a mortgage on a residential property located in Syracuse, Indiana.
This case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was prosecuted by Jill M. Cassara of the United States Department of Justice, Tax Division, and by Assistant United States Attorney Jesse Barrett.
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