Egg Harbor Township Man Sentenced in $3 Million Fraud Scheme

An Egg Harbor Township man has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for his role in a $3 million conspiracy to scam customers by offering phony consulting services to owners of timeshares through the New Jersey-based Vacation Ownership Group LLC, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said Thursday afternoon.

Adam Lacerda, 31, was previously convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, nine counts of mail fraud and three counts of wire fraud following a seven-week trial.

He will also serve three years of supervised release.

He was one of 10 Atlantic County residents and 11 New Jersey residents arrested in 2012 in a $2.4 million mail fraud scheme involving timeshare mortgages.

Last summer, Galloway resident Eric Reilly was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in the scheme.

Lacerda’s wife, 35-year-old Ashley Lacerda, was convicted in the same trial. She served as the company’s vice president and chief operating officer, and was convicted of sending fraudulent contracts to customers.

Also convicted were 40-year-old Ian Resnick, of Absecon, and 49-year-old Genevieve Manzoni, of Lake Worth, Fla.

Resnick is a convicted bank robber who started as a salesman giving the fraudulent sales pitch but became Adam Lacerda’s enforcer, with the title “director of compliance.”

Manzoni was a top VO sales representative who falsely told one victim she worked with a bank, another victim that she worked with a timeshare developer.

They are all awaiting sentencing.

The other New Jersey residents who were charged in the scheme included: Steven Cox, 48, of Ventnor; Ryan Bird, 34, of Clementon; Francis Santore, 52, of Northfield; Brian Corley, 27, of Egg Harbor City; Catherine Bannigan, 57, of Egg Harbor Township; Joseph Diventi, 32, of Somers Point; and Vincent Giordano, 21, of Margate.

Other people charged from out of state included: Alfred Giordano, 32, of South Carolina; Joseph Saxon, 38, of the Virgin Islands; Aimee Allen, 26, of South Carolina; and Eric K. Reiff, 40, of Williamsburg, Virginia.

According to documents filed in this case and the evidence presented at trial:

In July 2010, law enforcement officers began investigating The Vacation Ownership Group, (a/k/a VO Group LLC). The investigation revealed that from at least March 2009 and to Sept. 1, 2011, the defendants, through the VO Group, participated in a fraudulent scheme in which representatives of the VO Group, often using false identities, telephoned owners of timeshare vacation properties purchased from Flagship Resort Development, Wyndham Vacation Resorts Inc., and other timeshare developers.

They convinced the owners in some cases to submit money to the VO Group, purportedly to pay off the owners’ “mortgages” on their timeshares. The VO Group claimed that the timeshare owner could pay off the mortgage balance at a substantially reduced amount – often by as much as 50 percent the amount of the owner’s original mortgage – by mailing payment to the VO Group at a Post Office box in Pleasantville.

The VO Group representatives also got timeshare owners to send the VO Group money purportedly to have timeshares cancelled or sold. After receipt of payments for the VO Group’s “service,” the conspirators caused those payments to be deposited into a bank account in the name of the VO Group.

Rather than paying off the timeshare owner’s mortgage, canceling the owner’s timeshare, or selling the timeshare, the conspirators used the timeshare owner’s money for their personal use.

The investigation also revealed that in an attempt to cover up the scheme, the conspirators in most cases engaged in a “bait and switch” tactic by purchasing an additional timeshare in the victim’s name without the victim’s knowledge.

The victim purportedly had assented to the purchase based on documents the VO Group previously emailed to the victim for signature even though the victim had been led to believe he or she was simply paying off the original timeshare mortgage.

During the course of the investigation, law enforcement officers interviewed approximately 225 victims of the conspirators’ scheme identified to date. Many of the victims are elderly. Law enforcement has determined that the conspirators defrauded the victims of more than $2.4 million.