Danbury Biz Pleads Guilty To 'Psychic' Mail Fraud Scheme: Feds

DANBURY, CT — A Ridgebury Road-based local list brokerage firm pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court last week to helping scheme thousands of people out of millions of dollars.

Macromark Inc. tricked consumers into paying fees for falsely promised cash prizes and purportedly personalized "psychic" services, according to a news release from the Department of Justice. Thousands of consumers lost millions of dollars to the schemes.

Court documents allege that Macromark provided list-brokerage services for more than 11 years to clients who were running mass-mailing fraud schemes. Macromark specifically helped fraudulent mass mailers both acquire lists of potential victims to defraud and sell their lists of victims to other mass mailers. Macromark executives and employees engaged in this conduct despite knowing that their clients were mailing hundreds of thousands of deceptive prize notifications that misled victims into believing that they would receive a cash prize or personalized services upon payment of a fee, according to the allegations.

Many victims who lost money to the schemes were elderly and vulnerable, the DOJ said. In pleading guilty, Macromark admitted that the lists it provided to fraudulent clients resulted in losses to victims of at least $9,500,000.

"Protecting seniors from fraud is a top priority of the Department of Justice," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark of the DOJ's Civil Division. "Working with our law enforcement partners, we will hold accountable companies like Macromark that help foreign and domestic criminals identify and scam elderly Americans."

According to the documents, Macromark facilitated fraud schemes from 2005 until September 2016, when inspectors with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service executed search warrants on the company's offices and the Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch obtained a federal court order enjoining the company from facilitating mass-mailing fraud. The court order resulted in a permanent injunction that permanently prohibited Macromark from dealing in certain promotions or solicitations that purport to offer prizes or services for a fee, including sweepstakes reports, wealth-building programs or psychics. Macromark was also required to hire a compliance officer, and to audit a sample of all list orders for five years.

"List brokers and service providers such as Macromark who facilitate these schemes are especially dangerous," said Inspector in Charge Delany DeLeon-Colon of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service's Criminal Investigations Group. "Data firms such as this have extraordinary access to consumer’s personal information, not just their mailing address. The sale and distribution of this data exponentially magnifies the scale and impact of these schemes."

Macromark's plea follows a separate guilty plea by former Macromark Executive Vice President Steven Keats in July 2018 to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud while working at Macromark. Also, in March 2020, former Macromark Senior Vice President Norman Newman was indicted by a Connecticut Grand Jury for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, along with fifteen counts of wire fraud. Newman is scheduled for trial on March 1, 2021.

An indictment is an accusation by a federal grand jury and is not evidence of guilt. The defendant should be presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Under the terms of Macromark’s guilty plea, the company would be sentenced to three years of probation, forfeiture and fines totaling $1,000,000, and be required to cooperate with any related government investigation or prosecution. The final sentence awaits a ruling from the federal court overseeing the case.