Maserati man headed to prison for robbing $7.2 million from Covid fund

A man who fraudulently secured more than $7.2 million in emergency funds—through a reckless federal program supported by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman and enacted by Republican President Donald Trump—is going to prison after being extradited from Croatia and pleading guilty on September 20, 2022.

U.S. District Judge Wendy W. Berger sentenced Don V. Cisternino, 47, to eight years and six months in federal prison for wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and illegal monetary transaction after he admitted to using nearly half of the $7.2 million he received from the Trump-Coleman boondoggle to buy a massive 12,500-square-foot mansion on 12 acres in Florida.

The court also ordered Cisternino to forfeit more than $1 million that was seized from five different bank accounts, which are funds traceable to the proceeds of his crime.

In addition, Berger entered an order of forfeiture in the amount of $7.21 million, which represents the total proceeds obtained by Cisternino from the fraud scheme. The court also ordered Cisternino to pay restitution to the U.S. Small Business Administration in the amount of $7,445,855.89.

According to court documents, in May 2020, Cisternino fraudulently secured more than $7.2 million in emergency funds through a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan, which was made possible by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the federal law hurriedly enacted in March 2020.

After President Joe Biden took office, U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice and other agencies to hunt down criminals in order to clean up the mess that Watson-Coleman and Trump created, but the New Jersey Congresswoman who boasted about the boondoggle never accepted responsibility for the massive thievery she enabled.

“This CARES Act is a $2 trillion endeavor. There is a generous package,” said Watson Coleman after she supported the Trump spending scheme without adequate protection for taxpayers despite warnings that much of the money would be squandered. “A lot of money that is going into the SBA fund, that comes through your local lenders is money or loans that can be forgiven under certain circumstances. For instance, if you maintain the employment list that you have, not necessarily the same employees, but the amount of employees those loans can possibly be forgiven entirely.”

At the time, progressive champion Lisa McCormick criticized the Congresswoman for her support of the legislation, which failed to direct enough help for working middle-class Americans who faced financial ruin while unemployment exploded and many businesses shut down.

“The CARES Act is 880 pages of outrage and corruption, that gave Republican President Donald Trump a $6 trillion slush fund without adequate oversight or guidance to prevent abuses,” said Lisa McCormick, who noted that $2 trillion was appropriated by Congress, which also authorized the Federal Reserve to spend another $4 trillion. “Instead of stabilizing the economy, it enriches the rich and insults the 99 percent of Americans who follow the rules. This is worse than the TARP bailouts under Bush.”

Cisternino’s PPP loan application falsely claimed that his business, MagnifiCo, had 441 employees and monthly payroll expenses in 2019 of more than $2.8 million.

In truth, MagnifiCo had no employees other than Cisternino.

In support of his PPP loan application, Cisternino submitted false W-2s for MagnifiCo’s purported employees, many of which listed the names and Social Security numbers of actual persons who were not MagnifiCo employees and who had not authorized Cisternino to use their identities.

Once he obtained the emergency loan of $7.2 million, Cisternino spent the funds for his own personal enrichment, including the purchase of Maserati and Mercedes-Benz vehicles, as well as a 12-acre estate with a 12,579 sq. ft. residence in Florida, pictured above.

On January 22, 2021, after learning that he was under investigation, Cisternino fled to Switzerland. He was arrested on April 11, 2021, pursuant to an Interpol Red Notice, as he attempted to enter Croatia from Slovenia by way of Italy.

Rocco A. Malanga, 50, of New Jersey, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Julien X. Neals to charges that he submitted false documentation to three lenders to fraudulently obtain approximately $1.8 million.

Izzat Freitekh, 57, of North Carolina, was sentenced to four years in prison and his son Tarik Freitekh, aka Tareq Freitekh, 35, of California, was sentenced to 87 months in prison after they illegally obtained approximately $1.3 million in PPP funds.

Shelitha Robertson, a former Assistant City Attorney and police officer in Atlanta, Georgia, was indicted for a scheme to defraud the Paycheck Protection Program of over $7 million.

Gregory J. Blotnick, 34, of West Palm Beach and New York City, pleaded guilty to charges that he submitted 21 fraudulent PPP loan applications to 13 lenders on behalf of at least nine purported businesses that he controlled, to fraudulently obtain more than $4.6 million.

Since Watson Coleman and Trump legislated the CARES Act, the Department of Justice has prosecuted almost 200 defendants in more than 120 criminal cases related to fraudulently-obtained PPP funds.

“The Paycheck Protection Program is one of the most deceptive parts of the CARES Act, but the program might as well have been administered by the Trump campaign organization instead of the Small Business Administration,” said Lisa McCormick, around the time Congress approved the measure. “The CARES Act is a $6 trillion slush fund that will benefit Republican President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and it was approved almost unanimously by Democrats in Congress, even though it won’t help many people in Princeton or Plainfield.”

McCormick, who challenged US Senator Bob Menendez in the 2018 Democratic primary election, accurately predicted that the program would be rife with corruption at the same time that it failed to deliver help where it was most needed.

“States that got loans covering more than 65 percent of payroll costs gave Trump 124 electoral college votes and they awarded to Democrats only 20 electoral college votes,” said Lisa McCormick. “This is a clear case of President Donald Trump using taxpayer money to reward political supporters and punish Democrats but it was Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman and others in Congress who gave the Republican President a $6 trillion slush fund that will benefit his re-election campaign.”

“We need to outlaw bribery in all its forms, but the Congress should have known better than to entrust money in the hands of President Donald Trump,” said Lisa McCormick. “Just as they did when President George Bush rammed through TARP bailouts for Wall Street, Congress let 99 percent of Americans get steamrolled so the rich could collect free government money. This typifies the incompetence and cowardice that I am prepared to fight against.”

“When people needed help, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman gave Republican President Donald Trump a $6 trillion slush fund and she abandoned her responsibility to protect New Jersey taxpayers,” said Lisa McCormick. “The federal response to coronavirus has been a disaster on top of a disaster because the people we elected are just not doing their jobs.”

Lisa McCormick earned 159,998 votes statewide as a US Senate candidate in the 2018 Democratic primary election. Her 38 percent of the vote was two points better than the 36 percent captured by Senator Bernie Sanders in his 2016 presidential effort.

Although her campaign website promised to build "an economy that works for all families rather than a wealthy few," Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman has raised more the $5 million for federal political campaigns during her career in Congress although she represents some of New Jersey's poorest communities.

In 2022, the country started to “return to normal,” while still grappling with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic but the Department of Justice is only beginning to hunt down criminals empowered by Watson-Coleman and Trump.