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Ponzi schemer sentenced to 15 years
Rosemarie Wilson said she should never have trusted convicted swindler Joseph Forte because he never looked her in the eye.
Testifying at Forte's sentencing yesterday, Wilson, 57, of Chambersburg, recounted how she and her husband both came from "meager" backgrounds and had entrusted their nest egg to Forte.
"It's gone," Wilson said, adding that Forte, 53, of Broomall, had destroyed her belief in trustworthiness. "Now, my husband and I have a new motto: Nothing is as it appears."
As Wilson stepped down from the witness stand and walked back to her seat, she glared at Forte and said: "You bastard!"
Forte was sentenced to 15 years in a federal lockup and ordered to pay more than $34.8 million to 76 victims in connection with running a Ponzi scheme from January 1996 to December 2008.
U.S. District Judge Jan DuBois ordered Forte to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on Jan. 8.
Authorities said that Forte, who operated a partnership, Joseph Forte LP, from the basement of his home, told investors that he traded in S&P 500 stock futures and garnered returns of 18 to 38 percent. He actually lost money on his trades, prosecutors said.
Forte admitted at his plea hearing last June to diverting millions in investor funds to pay some investors' "returns" by using money contributed by new investors.
Authorities said that Forte, who misled investors by sending them bogus quarterly statements, paid himself millions in fees and bought a beach house in Sea Isle City, N.J.
Prior to sentencing, DuBois heard testimony from a number of Forte's victims. They said that they had trusted Forte with their money and that he had shattered their dreams, stolen their nest eggs, deprived them of funds needed to pay for medications and depleted the assets of a family foundation.
A man whose father had been taken in by Forte implored DuBois to send a message.
"You can't trust anything this man says," he said, testifying that his father had given Forte his life savings. "He's a predator. You can't let people like him get away with this. You have to set an example. Put him away for a long time."
Forte told DuBois before sentencing that when he began his investment fund, he had not intended for it to "morph" into a Ponzi scheme. "I always thought I could make it work out," he said, adding that he was "truly sorry" for what he had done to his victims.
DuBois said that he could not recall ever hearing more compelling victim testimony.
"Each and every victim has suffered at your hands," DuBois told Forte. "You've destroyed their lives."
Defense attorney Joseph Fioravanti had sought leniency for Forte, a onetime gym owner, based on "diminished mental capacity." A forensic psychologist hired by the defense said that Forte had a "delusional disorder."
Citing a report by the psychologist, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Khan said that Forte's Ponzi scheme was fueled by his desire to "have status" in the community and that Forte enjoyed being perceived as a "helping guy." (Forte used almost $1.7 million of investor funds to make contributions to schools, including more than $488,500 to Cardinal O'Hara High School, court documents said.)
Victims said that Forte, who pleaded guilty in June to fraud and money laundering, sought money from them just days before he turned himself in to authorities in December 2008 and confessed.
DuBois also ordered that Forte begin paying back his victims while he's in prison and then at the rate of at least $1,000 a month when he is released.
