NEW YORK MEN SENTENCED TO PRISON FOR MONEY LAUNDERING SCHEME

United States Attorney John L. Brownlee announced today that Dennis Testa, age 47, of Ozone Park (Queens), New York, was sentenced to 20 months in prison in United States District Court in Charlottesville.

Testa’s co-conspirator, Nicholas Lanza, age 45, of Staten Island, New York, was sentenced on September 9, 2006 to 30 months in prison. A third co-conspirator, Michael Laferrara, was sentenced to five months in prison and five months home incarceration on August 31, 2006. All three are required to pay restitution.

Testa and Lanza plead guilty in March, 2006 to conspiracy to commit money laundering. Laferrara pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in May, 2006.

According to evidence presented by Assistant United States Attorney Nancy Healey, sometime in 1997, there was a well-planned scheme to convince stock investors to purchase non-existent stock. The scheme involved the use of a bank account at a Chase Manhattan Bank branch in New York that was set up in the Oppenheimer name and was used, in part, to launder the funds by having people like the defendants find a way to cash “Oppenheimer” checks. During the scheme, someone also set up a mailbox with a “67 Wall Street” address to which investors sent checks that they believed were being mailed to Oppenheimer, and were being used to purchase real stocks. The Wall Street address, however, didn’t actually belong to Oppenheimer but rather was the address of a company that provided mail services for small businesses and individuals.

During the fraud, the fake stock broker made telephone calls to Virginia and elsewhere; caused mailings to be made to Virginia and elsewhere; and caused telephone calls to be made, and checks and documents to be sent, from Virginia (and elsewhere) to New York. As part of the scheme, investors were sent what appeared to be real documentation from and about Oppenheimer (including authentic-looking Oppenheimer purchase and sell orders). The calls and mailings were made from in or about December 1997 through March 1998. The fraud scheme netted more than $400,000 from the unsuspecting investors. While this scheme was ongoing, the money was deposited into the Chase account, and various checks were written on this account in furtherance of the money laundering scheme. Some of the checks drawn on the account were written to cover expenses for services used to keep the fraud going, e.g., there were checks to such entities as the above-referenced mail service company and Federal Express. Others were written to “cash.” Still others were provided to alleged businesses and to individuals such as the defendants to “launder” the funds.

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