Yomtov Scott Menaged, 40, of Phoenix, Ariz., was sentenced to 17 years in prison for orchestrating multiple fraud schemes resulting in more than $30 million in losses. Menaged had previously pleaded guilty to bank fraud, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft. The Court also ordered Menaged to pay the various victims $33,558,407.76 in restitution.
Menaged, who operated a real estate investment business as well as retail furniture stores, embezzled millions in loans meant for real estate purchases and provided fake real estate purchase documents to conceal the fraud. Menaged used the embezzled money to support his lavish lifestyle that included travel, million dollar homes, and luxury vehicles.
When Menaged no longer had access to the embezzled funds, he orchestrated an elaborate identity theft scheme involving purported customers of his various retail furniture stores. Menaged obtained the names and personal identification information of recently deceased individuals and used their information to submit fake credit applications from his furniture stores to various banks. In fact, no real furniture purchases ever took place. The ID theft scheme resulted in more than $2 million losses to the banks.
The investigation in this case was conducted by the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations and Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation.