Ocean County Attorney Sentenced to 46 Months In Facebook Fraud Case

An attorney from Ocean County with an office in Seaside Heights has been sentenced to nearly four years in prisonfor his role in a scheme that defrauded investors in connection with a Facebook IPO and real estate deals, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced Wednesday.

Fred Todd, 61, of Lakewood, who pleaded guilty Sept. 9 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of transacting in criminal proceeds, was sentenced to 46 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Joel A. Pisano in Trenton, Fishman said. Pisano also sentenced Todd to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution of $6.53 million.

According to court documents and testimony, Todd, an attorney with offices in Seaside Heights and in Los Angeles, comspired with Eliyahu Weinstein, 39, of Lakewood, and Aaron Glucksman,41, of Brooklyn, New York, and offered a pair of investors the opportunity to purchase large blocks of Facebook shares prior to the company’s initial public offering, or IPO, in May 2012. The offer was particularly attractive because large blocks of the shares were extremely difficult to get and were expected to increase in value at the time of the IPO. Weinstein and his conspirators did notactually have access to the shares.

The victims then wired millions of dollars between February and March 2012 to an account Weinstein and a conspirator controlled. Weinstein and another conspirator provided investors with false documents showing companies owned by various conspirators held assets, which would secure the Facebook victims’ investment.

The conspirators did not use any of the Facebook victims’ money to purchase Facebook shares, instead misappropriating it for their own use.

Around the same time, Todd and his conspirators also persuaded victims to invest in the purported purchase of an apartment complex in Florida. They told the victims that Weinstein had the opportunity to purchase the notes on the condominiums at a discounted price and immediately flip it at a substantial profit. The victims wired money to complete the purchase, but Todd and his conspirators instead used the money for their own purposes.

Weinstein and Glucksman already have pleaded guilty and been sentenced in the case.

Fishman credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Aaron T. Ford in Newark, for the investigation. He also thanked agents of IRS–Criminal Investigation, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Jonathan D. Larsen, for their role in the investigation.

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