Former Madison Company President Sentenced In $2.5 Million Fraud Case: Feds

MADISON, CT — A 73-year-old former Middlefield resident, who ran a company based in Madison, was sentenced Tuesday to three years in federal prison for defrauding a client of more than $2.5 million in connection with the purchase of a Pennsylvania fuel company, federal prosecutors said.

Dominick N. Donofrio also was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Kari A. Dooley in Bridgeport to three years of supervised release following his prison term. Donofrio pleaded guilty in February to a single charge of wire fraud.

According to court records and statements made during the proceedings, Donofrio owned and operated Windstar Financial Services Inc., a Madison-based consulting firm. In 2013, Wisconsin-based Randall Robert Binversie Holdings hired Donofrio to provide business and financial consulting services related to the potential purchase of a renewable fuel business.

Federal prosecutors said Donofrio later presented the company with an opportunity to acquire Tioga Fuel, a Philadelphia-area home heating oil business, along with related properties. Prosecutors said Donofrio falsely represented the purchase price as approximately $2.05 million, while secretly inflating the price by about $1.3 million before completing the transaction.

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Court documents state that Donofrio admitted to defrauding the company of more than $2.5 million. The losses included the inflated purchase price, more than $987,000 in consulting, negotiation and legal fees, approximately $87,000 taken from Tioga Fuel accounts during the acquisition, and about $136,000 in interest payments tied to what prosecutors described as a fictitious $1.25 million loan.

A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania indicted Donofrio in July 2019 on fraud charges. Authorities said he remained a fugitive until his arrest in Mystic, Connecticut, in July 2024. After failing to appear for a pretrial conference in Philadelphia in July 2025, he was arrested again in December 2025 and remained in custody afterward.

The case was later transferred to the District of Connecticut, where Donofrio pleaded guilty in February to the one count of wire fraud.

The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jonathan Francis and Anita Eve.