The so-called gifting tables recently produced two more gifts for the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Haven, this time involving two women who live in Branford. They are the latest women to be convicted for failing to pay taxes on the bounty they received in what was actually an illegal pyramid scheme.
Unlike the major players in the gifting table fraud, these women are not charged with fraud. Both pleaded guilty to misdemeanors, and one was sentenced last week to probation.
A federal investigation in 2012 led to the arrest that year of three women who authorities said organized the fraud which operated out of Guilford but involved other shoreline towns as well. Two Guilford women, key organizers of the gifting tables operation on the shoreline were tried in 2013 by a jury, charged with criminal wire fraud, conspiracy and filing false tax returns and found guilty. A third pleaded guilty.
Donna Bello, of Guilford, one of the leaders of the fraud was sentenced to six years in prison. Jill Platt, also of Guilford, received a 4 and one-half year prison term. Both sentences were lower than what the prosecutors sought. Both women were released from prison while they appeal their convictions.
A third woman, Bettejane Hopkins, of Essex, was sentenced to probation and community service after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service. Hopkins cooperated with federal prosecutors and agreed to make restitution to the IRS for taxes, penalties and interest. She was part of the Bello, Platt tables for three years.
Gifting Tables Investigation Continues
Now, two years after the Bello and Platt trials, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Haven has made it clear the government investigation is continuing.
Last week, Nancy Dillon, 70, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Hartford to one year of probation, the first six months of which she must serve in home confinement. Judge Alvin W. Thompson also ordered Dillon to perform 100 hours of community service, pay a $2,000 fine and back taxes, penalties and interest. She received $40,000 while a member of the tables.
In June, on the day the misdemeanor information was filed against her, Dillon pleaded guilty to willful failure to file a tax return, supply information or pay tax. She faced up to one year in prison and a fine up to $25,000. The government did not file a sentencing recommendation. Dillon’s attorney, Christopher Duby, did. He sought probation of no more than one year and the judge agreed.
Duby said in a sentencing memorandum that the Dillon case was “peripherally related to the Bello, Platt and Hopkins cases “in as much as all women participated in a gifting table. Unlike them, she was not charged with fraud and a felony tax charge.”
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Douglas P. Morabito and Peter S. Jongbloed, who tried the gifting tables’ cases before Judge Thompson in 2013, said that even though Dillon “had been advised by an attorney that the money was taxable income and not a gift, she failed to pay federal income taxes on the money she received.”
A second Branford resident, Eileen Brennan, 77, pleaded guilty to federal charges last September. Prosecutors said she earned $100,000 at the tables over a three-year period, beginning in 2008 and ending in 2010. She is expected to be sentenced next month, in March, also before Judge Thompson. Brennan, like Dillon, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.
A gifting table is described by the U.S. Attorney’s office as a four-level pyramid, with eight participants assigned to the bottom row, four participants assigned to the third row, two participants assigned to the second row, and one participant assigned to the top row, the “dessert” of the dinner.
The gifting tables’ scheme played out in homes across the shoreline for many years. The success of those joining the tables depended on new participants coming in and making the $5,000 “gift.” Once they joined, and brought in new people, they moved up the table hierarchy until they reached the top and a $40,000 bonanza.
Or so they thought.
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6 years sentence for a non-violent crime and no prior criminal history doesn't make sense.
Everyone knows the gov't asks for the maximum when forced to incur the expense of a trial.
That doesn't mean it's a sane or rational policy.
Where is the creativity in sentencing? Why are so many Americans in jail for non-violent crimes?
The prison-industrial complex is expensive and I for one want to stop paying to support it.