Leor Moshe, 43, an Orthodox Jew from Lakewood, N.J., faces up to 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines after pleading guilty to wire fraud in a scheme that defrauded more than 97 people of more than $47 million in a “Ponzi-like investment scheme,” Robert Frazer, U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, said on Thursday.
“The defendant turned the trust of his own religious community into a tool for fraud, exploiting personal relationships to fuel a massive Ponzi scheme,” Frazer stated.
Moshe, who is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 16, “admits he used their money to pay off his gambling habit, among other things,” stated Stefanie Roddy, special agent-in-charge of the FBI’s Newark field office.
From June 2019 to June 2023, Moshe tricked people into investing in his company, Capital Funding ASAP, by “falsely representing, among other things, that their investments would be used exclusively to fund short-term business loans that would generate returns between 9% and 53%,” the U.S. Department of Justice stated.
“In reality, Moshe used the money to make Ponzi-like payments to earlier investors and for personal expenses such as gambling debts, home renovations, mortgage loans and car loans,” it stated. “Moshe obtained approximately $47 million from investors, who were predominantly members of the Orthodox Jewish community, and used approximately $11 million for personal expenses.”
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, an independent federal agency, charged Moshe and two other Lakewood-area men on Thursday for their alleged roles in the scheme.
More than 87 investors put about $47 million into the scheme, and investors in Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Ohio lost more than $25 million, according to the SEC complaint.
The SEC also charged Jacob Goldman and Isaac Odes, who, it alleges, recruited investors for Moshe although they were not registered as broker-dealers. The two are accused of soliciting more than $23 million from at least 25 investors, negotiating investment terms and helping collect funds.
“As our complaint alleges, the defendants promised some investors that they could see returns in excess of 30%, which definitely falls into the ‘if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is’ category,” stated Thomas Smith Jr., associate director of the SEC regional office in New York.
“In reality, the Jersey Shore triumvirate took advantage of their relationships within Orthodox Jewish communities to raise money for Moshe’s scheme and enrich themselves,” he stated.
The SEC is seeking injunctions, civil penalties and returns of illegal profits.
