Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and George L. Piro, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office, announce that Gregory Fusca, 46, of Palm Beach Gardens, was sentenced to 170 months in prison, in connection with his operation of RC Innovations, Inc. (RCI), a fraudulent timeshare company located in Palm Beach County.
According to the information and plea documents filed with the court, Fusca and his co-conspirators engaged in a scheme to defraud timeshare owners throughout the United States. Between March 2010 and January 2011, telemarketers contacted hundreds of victims throughout the United States and collected and attempted to collect more than $2.6 million in advanced fees for timeshare marketing and sales services, which were never provided. The telemarketers solicited clients through at least eight boiler rooms, all located in Palm Beach County. The telemarketers would make false and misleading representations to the timeshare owners regarding RCI’s services. Among the false representations, the telemarketers claimed that: RCI had buyers for their timeshare units; RCI had closing scheduled for their timeshares; and that RCI would actively market their timeshares to potential buyers.
Fusca, along with the other owners of RCI, was responsible for running the boiler rooms and overseeing the finances. When dividing the fraudulent profits, Fusca and the other owners kept a percentage of all sales generated by the boiler rooms for themselves and then paid the managers a percentage of the sales for their respective boiler room and the salesmen a percentage of their sales.
Fusca also engaged in a second fraud scheme in which he and his co-conspirators posed as Department of Justice and State of Florida employees, promising to send purported restitution payments to victims of earlier timeshare frauds if the victims agreed to send advance fees.
Mr. Ferrer commended the investigative efforts of the FBI. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Adrienne Rabinowitz.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
