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For nearly a decade, ex-financial advisor Daniel Rivera, 51, told primarily elderly investors that his Robbins Lane Properties was “staffed by experienced real estate professionals, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig said.
Rivera promised a “guaranteed monthly income” thanks to a rate of return based on secure investments, she added.
The truth, Honig said, was: “Robbins Lane had no employees, no real estate portfolio, and the monies used to pay investors as a purported return on their investments was from funds he received from other investors."
A classic Ponzi scheme, in other words.
Rivera used the money “to pay his personal and unrelated business expenses, including his child’s college tuition and sorority fees,” the U.S. attorney said.
He also lied on his tax returns, she said.
Rather than face trial, Rivera took a deal from the government, pleading guilty to wire and tax fraud.
There's no parole in the federal prison system, which means he'll have to serve out just about all of the plea-bargained 6½ years in a federal penitentiary.
U.S. District Judge Anne E. Thompson also sentenced Rivera in Trenton on Friday to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution of $1.47 million to his victims and $284,863 to the IRS.
Honig credited special agents of the FBI and special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation with the investigation leading to the plea and sentencing, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Perry Farhat of her Government Fraud Unit in Newark.
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