A federal judge acknowledged Jeffrey Weisman’s long history of good deeds, then sentenced him to a year and day in prison — to send a message, she said, that people can’t get away with white-collar crime.
U.S. District Judge Janet Hall gave fraudster Jeffrey Weisman the sentence — which includes three years of supervised release as well as more than $2 million in restitution — during a two-and-a-half-hour sentencing hearing Friday afternoon in the Church Street courthouse.
The sentence, like others before it in this case, also demonstrated that cooperation with the government pays, handsomely.
Weisman, who is 46 years old, was part of one of New Haven’s largest-ever prosecuted mortgage fraud rings. He had pleaded guilty in 2012 to charges of conspiracy to commit mail, wire and bank fraud. The maximum sentence was between 51 and 63 months; he shaved it considerably by cooperating with the prosecution. The feds’ policy of rewarding cooperation has produced wildly differing sentences int his case, with some smaller or mid-level players receiving proportionally far more time behind bars than the masterminds. Cooperating didn’t help a little. It helped a lot.
The leader of the ring Menachem Yosef “Yossi” Levitin, one of those who cooperated, was sentenced to 22 months at the beginning of the year.
Judge Hall said she doesn’t believe Weisman himself will return to criminal activity. But, she said, “white collar criminals don’t think they will get caught. This tells the public, ‘Yes, you will.’”
“You’re not responsible for the economic collapse, but many people like you … certainly contributed to that crash,” she said.
“I brought immeasurable shame” to my family, community and career, Weisman told the judge Friday. He took his lawyer’s oath in 1995 and “I broke that oath,” he said, audibly crying at the microphone. “My action took away from that trust” the public reserves for lawyers, he said.
Fraudsters Preyed On Poor City Neighborhoods
For two years, between 2006 and 2008, Weisman was the closing attorney for 35 fraudulent mortgages on 26 multi-family properties in New Haven, which cheated lenders out of $7 million. He and his conspirators created fake forms and falsely inflated the true sales prices, then collected mortgages based on the inflated prices and split the proceeds.
The scammers also left behind a trail of blight in Newhallville, the Hill, and Fair Haven during last decade’s Great Recession.
Weisman’s lawyer, James Glasser, told the judge Friday that Weisman has spent his entire life giving to the community. He made a mistake because he was reeling from his father’s illness and has already faced consequences, including losing his law license, Glasser claimed.
Glasser said Weisman has shown he is committed to improving himself by actively participating in a recovery group, helping to create a local chapter of Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, and enrolling in Support Court.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Huang (at left in photo) pushed to decrease Weisman’s sentencing level because he collaborated with the government to prosecute co-conspirators, providing them with documents and crucial information.
But he argued that the sentence also had to reflect the “just punishment of the offense … That’s why we’re here today.” Huang said he was struck by the “dichotomous disparity” between the man who profited from a long, complex conspiracy to cheat lenders out of millions. Weisman was “in it the longest,” carried out the most transactions and “caused the greatest loss,” Huang said.
Weisman is just under the top tier of culpable participants, he argued.
Weisman received relatively little money — around $28,000 — through the scheme and has to forfeit that money as part of his plea. He also was sentenced to pay restitution of $2,021,054.
The pre-sentencing memo contained 51 letters of support from Weisman’s family and friends. Several people spoke to Weisman’s character in court Friday.
His recovery-group sponsor told three stories of when Weisman went out of his way to help addicts with housing, support and money. “I didn’t know him when he committed the crimes. But what he’s doing now is really good. I just wanted to be here to tell you about the guy I know today,” he said.
Longtime friend Lisa Miller said Weisman traveled to Stamford every night of shiva after her mother died, to ensure there was a quorum of Jewish worshippers. He’s “devoted to his family and the community,” she said.
Weisman started his statement with a prayer, asking God to “build with me and do with me what you will.” His supporters filling the courtroom rows bowed their heads in silence.
During the past two years in a recovery program, Weisman said, he had taken a “moral inventory” to confront his “character defects.” He said his role in the scheme was “self-serving” as well as “dishonest.” He was afraid of “not being a good breadwinner” and let that “dictate my options.”
Weisman said he conceptualizes a “balance scale of good deeds and misdeeds,” with the good deeds as being “infectious. I tipped the scales the other way.” Since getting caught in the fraud and deciding to collaborate with the government to shut it down, he feels like “a human being,” able to show kindness to his family. “One small deed from any of us can effect great change,” he said.
Judge Hall said she liked Weisman’s way of looking at good and bad deeds. If she had to sentence him based on his friends’ testimonials to his character, “it’d be very easy,” she said. “It sounds like you’re a very good person who has done many good things in your life.”
But he also “committed the crime over a very long period of time,” and signed off on fraudulent transactions “26 different times,” Hall said. “You basically lied. You told the bank, ‘This is where the money came in and where it came out. And it wasn’t true. You forged signatures on at least one occasion.” Hall said it was also “incomprehensible” that Weisman did not make very much money from the scheme and put his “license in danger for more than two years.”
“If at the first closing, you said no, they wouldn’t have happened,” she said. “They would have had to find somebody else to do it.”
Masterminds Fared Better Than Recruits
The scheme’s mastermind, Levitin, was the most valuable federal witness — because he had recruited the players and knew best who did what wrong. He was rewarded with just a little more, or even less, jail time than people who pocketed less than 1 percent of the money he did in the scam.
Levitin (at right in the above photo with his attorney, Willie Dow), pocketed up to half a million dollars in broker’s fees on more than 40 sham property sales from 2006 to 2008, by his own estimate. Hall sentenced him to 22 months in jail. He had faced more than eight years and $20 million in fines
Others sentences handed down by Hall in this case include:
• Loan officer Andrew Constantinou (pictured above): 5 years.
• Property flipper Kwame Nkrumah: 4 years.
• Ronald Hutchison, who bought and sold properties through Levitin: 28 months.
• Correctional officer Jacques Kelly (pictured), who bought and sold properties through Levitin: 15 months.
• Broker/loan officer Charles Lesser: 12 months and a day.
• Attorney Genevieve Salvatore: 2 years.
• Attorney Bradford Rieger: 2 years.
• Attorney Lawrence Dressler: 20 months.
Previous articles about this case and a related New Haven mortgage-fraud case:
• “Teshuvah,” & Cooperation With Feds, Pay Off
• Fox To Enter Henhouse
• Mortgage Scammer Sentenced To One Year In Jail
• Will White-Collar Crime Bring Jail Time?
• Facing 30 Years, Scammer Turns Star Witness
• Scammer, Awaiting Sentence, Rebuilds
• Patsies? Or Schemers?
• Fraud Defense: Banks Were The Real Crooks
• Jury Convicts 2 In Mortgage Scam
• Kwame & Straw Buyer Leave Trail Of Blight
• Mortgage Fraudster Gets 15 Months
• 1 Mortgage Fraud Ring Down, Feds Turn To 2nd
• “Big Liberal” Gets 5 Years For Ripping Off Poor
• White-Collar Criminals Sent To Slammer
• Judge Baffled By Two Morris Olmers
• Feds Will Retry Avigdor
• 4 Convicted In Fraud Scam; Mistrial For Rabbi
• Jury Can’t Agree In Scam Trial
• Avigdor’s Final Plea: Follow The Money
• Claire: The Rabbi Is Kosher
• Wednesday The Rabbi Took The Stand
• Straw Buyer Lured Into A Wild Ride
• After Big Fish Plead, Smaller Fry Point Fingers
• Slum-Photo Doctor Makes A Call
• What Happened At Goodfellas Didn’t Stay At Goodfellas
• Fraud Trial Opens With Oz-Like Yarn
• “Partying” MySpacer Lined Up Scam Homebuyers
• “Straw Buyer” Pleads Guilty
• Neighbors, Taxpayers Left With The Tab
• FBI Arrests Police Commissioner, Slumlord, Rabbi
• One Last Gambit Falls Short
• Was He In “Custody”?
• Is Slum Landlord Helping The FBI?
• Feds Snag Poverty Landlord
• Police Commissioner Pleads
• Mortgage Fraud Mastermind Gets 10 Years
Cutting a deal with the accused saves the government time and money and makes it easier to locate others involved in the crime.
Prison time may satisfy the need to punish, but studies show taking the criminal's money is more effective.
Let's look to compulsory community service for an extended period of time for non-violent crimes.
Prison is SO 18th century!