Pittsburgh-Area Man Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison for Defrauding Investors of $2.2 Million

PITTSBURGH, PA - A resident of Pittsburgh, PA, has been sentenced by a federal district court judge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to 60 months in prison on charges of wire fraud and tax evasion, United States Attorney Scott W. Brady announced today.

Albert P. Majkowski, Jr., 59, went to trial in January and was found guilty by a jury of wire fraud and tax violations set forth in a seven-count indictment.

According to the evidence presented during trial, Majkowski defrauded potential investors over nearly a decade by, among other things, making false statements about his own success in "incubating" start-up businesses, misrepresenting his own personal wealth and producing a series of false documents that inflated the assets of his company and the funding he was supposedly receiving from outside sources. He also evaded his income tax obligations for the years 2007 through 2010 by a variety of means including failing to file tax returns, putting his assets into the names of other persons and manipulating a series of checks made out in blank or to cash. The evidence produced at trial showed that he evaded nearly $200,000 in federal income tax on income of more than $700,000. The presiding judge, U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton, made a finding at the time of sentencing that various investors had lost more than $2.2 million that they had entrusted to Majkowski.

At the sentencing proceeding Majkowski was given 60 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release and ordered to pay more than $2.2 million to defrauded investors as well as restitution to the IRS of $181,456.

The Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigations, and the United States Postal Inspection Service conducted the investigation leading to the charges in this case.