Man Sentenced for Crimes Committed While in Jail
| U.S. Attorney’s Office August 25, 2011 |
BUFFALO, NY—U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr. announced today that William L. Toth, Jr., 44, of Orchard Park, New York, was sentenced to an additional 12 months’ incarceration by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara. Toth was convicted in May 2011 of conspiring to get a sentence reduction under false pretenses, and of mortgage fraud. This sentence will run consecutively to the 52-month sentence he is currently serving.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gretchen L. Wylegala, who handled the case, stated that the defendant was sentenced in September 2009 to a 52-month term of imprisonment on other criminal charges by Judge Arcara. Once in jail, he paid a former inmate, Royce Garrott, $10,000 to get a sentencing reduction motion filed. Toth admitted that he knew that the motion would be based on falsehoods—he understood that the crimes about which he would swear he provided information were staged by others. In the end, no motion was made—Garrott has admitted in earlier court proceedings that he was scamming Toth and other inmates.
Garrott, a resident of Chicago, pled guilty earlier this year to mail fraud in connection with this scheme. Judge Arcara sentenced him to12 months in jail for his role in this scheme.
Toth’s plea had also included a plea to mortgage fraud. Before he went to jail in 2009, Toth had obtained a mortgage for his wife, by submitting false tax returns and income information.
Judge Arcara sentenced Toth to a 12-month sentence on each charge, running those sentences concurrently. Noting the seriousness of the charge which involved the willingness to tamper with the justice system, Judge Arcara ordered the 12-month total sentence to run consecutively to the remainder of the 52-month sentence Toth is currently serving.
The conviction was the culmination of an investigation by special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge SAC Christopher M. Piehota, and special agents of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, under the direction of Charles R. Pine, Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office.