Ex-SD real estate agent sentenced to prison for fraud scheme
SAN DIEGO (CNS) – A previous San Diego real estate agent was sentenced Monday to more than five yrs in prison for orchestrating a fraud plan that bilked traders out of millions of bucks.
Alexander Avergoon, who was also requested to pay out just about $10 million in restitution, pleaded guilty to federal expenses in connection with what prosecutors explained as a collection of financial commitment fraud techniques spanning nearly a decade.
In accordance to the U.S. Attorney’s Business office, Avergoon, 46, persuaded a lot more than a dozen buyers to partner with him to buy serious estate houses this sort of as condominium structures and break up the revenue from renting out the attributes.
Even so, prosecutors reported he failed to use the trader money to obtain attributes, and solid paperwork in buy to make the investments appear genuine.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office environment also claimed Avergoon purported to use trader funds to fund small-term, small-chance financial loans and developed faux loan agreements and other doctored paperwork.
Applying trader resources, Avergoon created regular regular payments to the victims, which have been supposedly hire payments from tenants at the nonexistent attributes or payments that supposedly proved that the shorter-time period loans were being carrying out, prosecutors alleged.
In the defense’s sentencing papers, Avergoon and his attorney stated the previous real estate agent engaged in the crimes out of desperation, as a way to offset the dire economic straits of his various failing companies.
In a handwritten letter to the judge, Avergoon wrote that in get to help his corporations and avoid laying off staff, “I produced the most important miscalculation of my daily life.”
Avergoon wrote that he did not use investor funds as a way to aid an extravagant way of living, and stated “My actions are not excusable, irrespective of the explanations driving it.”
Avergoon was arrested in Latvia in 2019 and extradited to the United States.
Prosecutors allege Avergoon fled the nation after FBI agents satisfied with him in late 2018, a conference that alerted him to the felony investigation into the fraud.
Avergoon’s legal professional, Adam Doyle, wrote in sentencing papers that Avergoon traveled out of the region to see his dad and mom in Israel and usually intended to return to San Diego.
When he discovered his dad and mom were being leaving Israel to go on holiday, he flew to Latvia in its place, around where by a pal of his was dwelling, in accordance to the legal professional, who wrote that his client was unaware that he experienced been indicted.
U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman explained in a assertion, “This defendant is a prolific fraudster who has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from the numerous victims of his devious techniques. It is now his turn to spend the price tag for his crimes.”
Nevertheless Avergoon’s 64-thirty day period sentence pertains to the authentic estate scheme, federal prosecutors have also alleged that Avergoon assisted previous Chabad of Poway Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein in fraudulently getting approximately $1 million in emergency grant cash.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Avergoon also assisted Goldstein recruit men and women to get portion in a fraudulent donation fraud tax evasion plan, in which individuals designed faux donations to the Chabad and experienced the majority of the money funneled again to them.
Goldstein, who pleaded guilty to tax and wire fraud charges stemming from a string of fraud schemes, is slated to be sentenced Tuesday in San Diego federal court docket.
