Special to IFN
A Mooresville man was sentenced to serve 45 months in federal prison on Thursday for orchestrating a $6.1 million investment fraud scheme and for fraudulently obtaining more than $2.6 million in COVID relief funds.
In addition to the prison sentence, Steven Andiloro, 53, was also ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth D. Bell to pay $5,341,155 in restitution to the victims of his crimes.
Russ Ferguson, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, announced the disposition of the case in a news release.
According to documents filed in the case and the sentencing hearing, from 2018 to 2021, Andiloro operated an investment fraud scheme in which he induced victims to invest in businesses, both real and fictitious, by making false representations about where and how the investors’ money would be invested. For example, some of Andiloro’s victims were told their money would be invested into his car service business, while others believed they were investing in marijuana dispensary business — which did not exist.
Contrary to representations made to victims, Andiloro did not invest the money as promised. Instead, he used the funds to pay for personal expenses and to operate a Ponzi scheme, where he used money from new investors to pay earlier investors purporting that the returns were the result of profitable investments.
In addition to the investment scheme, Andiloro also engaged in COVID fraud. Court records show that, from April 2020 to March 2021, Andiloro obtained funds from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) by submitting fraudulent applications for disaster relief loans intended for businesses that suffered economic hardship due to the pandemic. To obtain the PPP funds, Andiloro submitted applications that contained false financial information about his businesses, including fake employment data and inflated revenues, costs, and payroll expenses. Andiloro received more than $2.6 million in disaster relief funds, which he used to fund his personal lifestyle and to make payments in furtherance of the investment scheme.
Andiloro remains free on bond. He will be ordered to report to the Federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility.
In making today’s announcement, U.S. Attorney Ferguson thanked the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI, and the SBA-OIG for their investigation of the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Graham Billings and Katherine Armstrong with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte prosecuted the case.
Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.