Mark Andrew Moore, a former facilities manager at Hunter College, claimed he was the Chairman, President and CEO of eS-prit International, an online health resource. He told members of an investment club that his business could make lots of money and offered them a discounted rate on his stocks.
Nearly 50 members gave Moore $365,000 to purchase the stocks even though there was no such company, no such stocks. He created a dummy website and printed bogus certificates which he sent to the investors. The company’s Board of Directors was also bogus and the people on the Board had no idea they were there or that the company even existed.
The entire operation was bogus and after duping these investors, Moore used their money to buy meals, purchase phones, go shopping and to pay off $38,000 to Hunter College which he had ripeed off from them years earlier.He also used the funds to pay his family’s cell phones and cell phone bills, Cable TV and gym memberships.
The victims of his fraud scheme were from six states including Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, California, Nevada and Georgia. eS-prit International Inc. did not exist at all. It was only on paper where its listed headquarters was in reality, a post office box Moore had rented. even the company website was a skeleton site and none of the links were activated.
Moore was arrested and charged with grand larceny, tax fraud, securities fraud and the scheme to defraud. He was indicted on one count of Grand Larceny in the Second Degree punishable by up to 7½ to 15 years in prison, 5 counts of Grand Larceny in the third degree, one count of criminal tax fraud, punishable by 3½ to 7 years in prison; six counts of securities fraud and one count of scheme to defraud punishable by up to 2 to 4 year in prison; and one count of Failure to file a tax return punishable by up to one year in prison.
