Frank DeFilippo Sentenced in Timeshare Fraud

Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Michael B. Steinbach, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office, announced that Friday Senior United States District Judge Kenneth L. Ryskamp sentenced defendant Frank DeFilippo, 45, of Boca Raton, Florida, to 151 months’ incarceration for conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1349.

Defendant DeFilippo, a former New York City Police detective, organized a boiler room in which telemarketers negotiated to purchase victim-owned timeshares if the victim paid them an advanced fee to cover such things as a title search. This fee ranged as high as tens of thousands of dollars. The victims were also told that this fee would be refunded to them at closing together with the money the conspirators were to pay them for the timeshares. None of these purchases ever occurred. In total, the conspiracy victimized over 1,000 people, many of whom were senior citizens, and cost the victims, in aggregate, more than $2.5 million.

Mr. Ferrer commended the investigative efforts of the FBI in this case. This case is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kerry S. Baron.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls.