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Press Release
CAMDEN, N.J. – A Lake Worth, Florida, woman was sentenced today to 42 months in prison for her role in a $3 million conspiracy to scam customers by offering phony consulting services to owners of timeshares through the New Jersey-based Vacation Ownership Group LLC, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
Genevieve Manzoni, 50, was previously convicted in September 2013 of one count of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. She was convicted following a seven-week trial before U.S. District Judge Noel L. Hillman, who imposed the sentence today in Camden federal court.
According to documents filed in this case and the evidence presented at trial:
Manzoni and her codefendants were part of a scheme to defraud hundreds of timeshare owners by offering fraudulent consulting services through Vacation Ownership Group (now VO Financial). Adam Lacerda, 31, of Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, the company founder, president and chief executive officer, devised the company’s fraudulent sales pitches. He directed his sales force to tell numerous lies to VO customers, including that VO worked with the banks holding the customers’ loans, would use money sent by customers to pay off the customers’ loans on their timeshares, and could cancel customers’ timeshares with money back.
His wife, Ashley Lacerda, 36, the company vice president and chief operating officer, sent fraudulent contracts to customers and managed the office. Ian Resnick, 40, of Absecon, New Jersey, a convicted bank robber, started as a salesman giving the fraudulent sales pitch but became Adam Lacerda’s enforcer, with the title “director of compliance.” Manzoni was a top VO sales representative who falsely told one victim she worked with a bank, another victim that she worked with a timeshare developer.
All four defendants were convicted at the same trial. The 14 victims who testified – including business executives, veterans, senior citizens, a lawyer and a professor – were defrauded out of tens of thousands of dollars by the defendants’ sophisticated scheme.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Hillman ordered Manzoni to serve three years of supervised release and pay restitution of $174,842.13.
Adam Lacerda was sentenced to 27 years in prison on June 25, 2015. Ashley Lacerda and Resnick still await sentencing.
U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of FBI’s Atlantic City Resident Agency, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Richard M. Frankel in Newark; and special agents from the Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General, Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Cheryl Garcia, New York Region, for the investigation. He also thanked the N.J. Department of Labor and Workforce Development for its assistance.
The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney R. David Walk Jr. of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal Division in Camden.
Defense counsel:
Adam Lacerda: Mark E. Cedrone Esq., Philadelphia
Ashley Lacerda: Charles Nugent Esq., Marlton, New Jersey
Ian Resnick: Michael E. Reilly Esq., Philadelphia
Genevieve Manzoni: Ralph A. Jacobs Esq., Philadelphia