Miami, Florida – On July 12, 2021, Los Angeles County, California natives, Dane Roseman, 38, and Ivan Acevedo, 44, pled guilty to participating in a massive investment fraud scheme, in which more than 7,000 victims suffered financial losses, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. Co-defendant Robert Shapiro, the former owner, president, and CEO of Woodbridge Group of Companies LLC (“Woodbridge”) was previously sentenced to the maximum sentence of 25 years in prison for his leadership role in the fraud scheme and his separate income tax fraud.
According to the indictment, superseding information, and court documents, Shapiro spearheaded and concealed an enormous Ponzi scheme through his business, Woodbridge. Woodbridge employed approximately 130 people and had offices located throughout the United States, including in Boca Raton, Florida; Sherman Oaks, California; Colorado; Tennessee; and Connecticut. The scheme ran from at least July 2012 to December 2017, when Woodbridge filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and defaulted on its obligations to investors.
Throughout the conspiracy, Woodbridge’s main business model was to solicit money from investors and, in exchange, issue investors promissory notes reflecting purported loans to Woodbridge that paid high monthly interest rates. Woodbridge falsely claimed that these investments were tied to real property owned by third parties and that the third parties would be making the interest payments to Woodbridge and its…
