Paul Simoneachi, an insurance agent from Brooklyn, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to scamming 21 elderly consumers out of more than $4.5 million in savings.
Simoneachi preyed upon Italian immigrants and even close friends by telling them that they should end their insurance policies and invest the money with Simoneachi.
The New York Daily News has more details on the plea.
Simoneachi pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Supreme Court Tuesday to grand larceny as a hate crime. He’ll be sentenced to four to 12 years in prison and has to repay all the money.
Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said the father of four adult kids ran the scam from 2009 to 2014, and even targeted his friends.
“Shamefully, this defendant destroyed the retirements of elderly people who trusted him with their life savings,” Thompson said. “Some of them considered him a friend, but that did not stop him from taking advantage of their age and lack of financial knowledge to steal their money.”
Simoneachi “tried to conceal his crimes” by providing false documents to the victims, aged between 60 to 94, and gave them checks that were supposedly distributions from their policies or accounts, but which were actually checks from other accounts he controlled, prosecutors said.
One of Simoneachi’s victims had a savings of $300,000 reduced to $2,000 by Simoneachi’s crime.
Photo by MIKE via Flickr CC License
