Source: Office of United States Attorneys
PHILADELPHIA – Acting United States Attorney Nelson S.T. Thayer, Jr., announced that Josh S. Verne, 47, formerly of Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, now a resident of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, entered a plea of guilty today before United States District Court Judge John F. Murphy to three counts of securities fraud, nine counts of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft, charges arising from a series of schemes through which the defendant defrauded dozens of investors, prospective investors, employees, and business partners out of millions of dollars.
Verne was charged by indictment in August of last year with carrying out the schemes, which took place from in or about 2017 to 2020.
As detailed in the indictment and admitted by the defendant during today’s guilty plea hearing, Verne held himself out as a wealthy and successful businessman, entrepreneur, and investor, carrying out his fraudulent activities through a series of limited liability companies, of which he was the chief executive and over which he maintained control.
Among other things, Verne falsely represented his prior business successes, falsely represented his personal net worth, falsely represented his own investments, and falsely represented the financial health of his companies and investments, in order to induce others to invest in or provide loans to him or his companies.
For instance, Verne admitted to providing an investor with a forged Goldman Sachs statement that showed family investment holdings for Verne of more than $50 million, when, in fact, Verne did not have an investment account at Goldman Sachs in his own name or in his family’s names, much less an account with a market value of more than $50 million.
Verne also misused business and investor funds to repay prior debts and to finance an affluent lifestyle he could not afford, such as personal expenses related to renovations to his showcase vacation property on the Jersey shore, travel on private jets, contributions to political candidates, personal charitable contributions, and country club payments.
The defendant admitted that, in order to delay and prevent discovery by law enforcement of his own misconduct, he later sent bank and FedEx confirmations purporting to confirm delivery of funds to investors to whom he had promised repayment; the bank and FedEx confirmations were false and fraudulent.
Further, Verne stole the identity of a former employee from his company, forging the employee’s signature on a sales agreement to disguise an unauthorized sale of the employee’s shares of stock. Verne obtained $150,000 from the unauthorized sale and used those funds to make payments to himself and to a prior investor.
The defendant is scheduled to be sentenced on June 13 and faces a maximum possible sentence of 242 years’ imprisonment, with a mandatory minimum of two years’ imprisonment, three years of supervised release, a $17,500,000 fine, and a $1,300 special assessment. Full restitution also shall be ordered.
The case was investigated by FBI Philadelphia’s Fort Washington Resident Agency and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Paul G. Shapiro and Jerome M. Maiatico. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Philadelphia Regional Office investigated civil securities fraud charges against Verne, which are pending.