Lakewood Lawyer Gets Prison Time for Investment Scam

Lakewood laywer Fred Todd, the third codefendant to admit scamming investors who thought they were getting inside deals on Facebook stock and Florida real estate, is given 46 months in prison.

Todd, 61, was sentenced today in a Trenton federal courtroom on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and transacting in criminal proceeds, according to information from the office of New Jesey U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman. He pleaded guilty in 2014.

Todd maintains offices in Seaside Heights and in Los Angeles, California, according to information released by Fishman's office.

Former investment mogul Eliyahu Weinstein, 39, of Lakewood, and Aaron Glucksman, 41, of Brooklyn, were sentenced in late 2014 for their guilty pleas.

A judge added two years to the 22 Weinstein earned in connection with  another investment scam. Glucksman's 52-month term was arranged to run concurrently with a 36-month sentence he was handed in New York in an unrelated case, authorities said.

According to information filed in the case, the three offered two investors a chance to buy what they thought were large blocks of Facebook stock ahead of the social media site's initial public offering (IPO), at bargain rates compared to the expected increase in value at issue. Todd, Weinstein and Glucksman had no access to the stock, authorities said.

The victims wired millions of dollars to specified accounts in February and March 2012 and received bogus documents delineating non-existent holdings in other companies to secure their cooperation, investigators said.

The conspirators also conned investors into what they believed to be an apartment complex in Florida, investigators said. Weinstein was presented as having the chance to buy the notes on the units at discount, which would be flipped for big profits.

Todd was also sentenced to three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution amounting to $6,530,000.