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This time, George Bussanich, Sr., 65, of Park Ridge, and George Bussanich, Jr., 43, of Upper Saddle River, are charged with defrauding investors and mortgage lenders out of more than $2.5 million through a “fix and flip” investment scam involving Jersey Shore real estate.
Victims believed they were funding the purchase, renovation, and resale of four residential homes in Ocean County — two in Ship Bottom, one in Manahawkin, and another in Surf City, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said.
Instead, the Bussaniches diverted and then laundered the money for their personal use through bank accounts and corporate entities that allowed them to “conceal their involvement and disguise the nature of the stolen money,” the attorney general said.
The indictment also accuses Bussanich Jr. of submitting false loan applications to a lender to obtain financing for the scam.
You could call father and son habitual con men.
Both had agreed in August 2014 to pay $5.5 million – including $4 million in investor restitution -- to settle a lawsuit filed by the New Jersey Bureau of Securities accusing them of defrauding 26 investors, many of them senior citizens.
They'd conned elderly victims into investing in a purported surgical center that was actually a holding company that the elder Bussanich controlled, state authorities said at the time.
As part of their settlement, they both agreed to a prohibition from ever selling securities again.
The very next month the Bussaniches began soliciting investments in another bogus company from 15 of the very same investors, state authorities said.
In what was described as a classic Ponzi scheme, the men paid dividends from the original principal while fooling investors into believing their money was generating profits.
Once again they preyed mostly on retirees, promising them annual returns of more than 8% from opportunities that never existed, according to state prosecutors. Some of the victims died while awaiting justice.
Proceeds from the schemes paid for several homes and seven luxury cars, including two Maserati Quattroportes and a Ferrari F430 Spider -- each of which can cost well over $100,000 -- and a Mercedes ML350, authorities said. Investor money also paid for lavish shopping, dining, travel and entertainment, they said.
Three Bussaniches – George Sr., George Jr. and the elder’s wife, Wilma Bussanich – were arrested by state authorities in September 2015 and took guilty pleas.
Wilma Bussanich got probation, while both her husband and son were sentenced to state prison time. The elder Bussanich was then sentenced in a federal case.
Bussanich Sr. was later sentenced to 27 months in federal prison in November 2020 for defrauding mortgage lenders out of more than $300,000 in another scam. However, he was released from the facility in Allenwood, PA in December 2021, records show.
He then served seven months in state custody before being released in July 2022.
George Bussanich Jr. went to state prison for what was supposed to be eight years in January 2020 -- for money laundering and securities fraud -- but was paroled in September 2021 after serving 20 months, records show.
He was sentenced to eight months of monitored home confinement in the federal case.
The new state case has its roots in a criminal complaint filed by the state in February 2021 against Bussanich Sr., his son and his daughter, Melanie Whitney.
Whitney pleaded guilty to theft by deception in March and is awaiting sentencing.
Superior Court Assignment Judge Robert T. Lougy, sitting in Trenton, assigned the new case against her father and brother to Bergen County. Both Bussaniches will have first court appearances in Hackensack at some point.
The indictment charges them with conspiracy, theft by deception, money laundering and credit card fraud. The younger was also charged with falsifying records.
Deputy Attorney General Janet R. Bosi of Platkin’s Office of Securities Fraud and Financial Crimes Prosecutions is handling the case for the state.
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