Miami-Dade Man Gets 35 Years after Violating Telemarketing Fraud Probation

Defendant ran “boiler room” operations, scammed victims out of millions of dollars

December 10, 2007 -- TALLAHASSEE, FL – Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that a Miami-Dade County man was sentenced to 35 years in prison after he violated the terms of his criminal probation. Fred Massaro was serving a 10-year probation sentence after a 13-year prison sentence he received in 1997 for his involvement in a criminal pyramid scheme that defrauded victims out of more than $2.3 million.

While on probation, Massaro became involved in a similar scam that defrauded another $30 million from investors. He was prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution in the 1997 case and jointly prosecuted for the probation violations by the Attorney General’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office for the 17th Judicial Circuit.

“When criminals defraud our citizens of their hard-earned money, they cause significant and lasting harm,” said Attorney General McCollum. “We must continue to protect Floridians from those individuals who are determined to engage in this nefarious behavior, particularly in a case with a repeat offender.”

Massaro, 55, pled guilty in 1997 to two cases, one filed by the Office of Statewide Prosecution and one filed by the State Attorney’s Office for the 17th Judicial Circuit, both involving charges of organized scheme to defraud. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison followed by 10 years reporting probation. Part of his plea agreement prohibited him from operating or working telemarketing businesses or selling business opportunities when he was on probation. Massaro also had to pay more than $2.3 million in victim restitution for the two cases.

In 2006, investigators with the United States Postal Service learned that Massaro was working in two telemarketing “boiler rooms.” The scams, operated through companies named AmeriPOS and Cash Link, involved selling cashless ATM machines or prepaid card machines to investors. The orchestrators of the scams promised that AmeriPOS and Cash Link had pre-determined locations for the machines which would generate customer usage sufficient to pay back investors their initial investment in one year to 18 months. Evidence showed that Massaro was responsible for writing the ‘pitch sheets’ used by the telemarketers to solicit victims and even provided victims with false references who lied about their investments. He also supervised and trained the telemarketers and acted as a ‘closer’ on many of the deals.

Victims of the scam were required to pay a minimum of $11,000 for three machines and three promised locations and some were induced to send even more. Many of the victims were retired and had used their retirement savings to purchase what they thought would be a ‘secure’ retirement business. Some took out mortgages on their homes to finance the purchases. Authorities estimate that nearly $30 million was defrauded from the investing victims. A Court-appointed Receiver was assigned to attempt asset recovery, but most victims lost the entirety of their investments.

Massaro was sentenced to 35 years in prison and will not be eligible for any type of special parole consideration. The investigation was led by the Broward Sheriff’s Office. The sentence was handed down by Circuit Court Judge Susan Lebow in the 17th Judicial Circuit in and for Broward County.

Source: Florida Attorney General

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