Thursday, October 15, 2009

A Convent Station woman faces up to ten years in jail for comitting a fraud involving over $1 million dollars. Leigh O'Neill, 38, pleaded guilty in state Superior Court, Morristown today, to one count of theft by deception between July 2005 and Oct. 31, 2006.

Starting around July of 2005, Ms. O'Neill proposed a business venture to prospective investors. She represented she could locate homes on the verge of foreclosure. She would then locate potential buyers for these homes, use the investor's money to purchase the homes from the financially distressed owners, and then sell the homes at a profit to the potential buyers. Under the deal she proposed, O'Neill would take a portion of the profits and the investors would get the remainder.

Over the course of one year and two months, Ms. O'Neill identified a total of 14 properties to the investors/victims for them to invest in. She represented that four of the properties actually sold and paid the investors "profits" from the sales. Those "profits" were actually a portion of the money the investors had already given her. An investigation was conducted by Detective Steve Murzenski of the Morris County Prosecutor's Office Fraud Unit which revealed that Ms. O'Neill was in no way involved the sale of any of the indentified properties; in fact, most of the property owners were able to avert foreclosure proceedings by renegotiating with their lender(s). In short, she collected money from the investors on properties she had no interest in and then paid "profits" from sales that never occurred. The investors believed these "profit" payments were from the sales of specific properties and as a result were induced into further investment. In reality, Ms. O'Neill was essentially giving them back a portion of their own money. Ms. O'Neill has already paid back about $435,000 and has agreed to make restitution of about $800,000 to 10 people as part of the plea.

Morris County Prosecutor Robert A. Bianchi, Esq. stated "Even though this defendant has paid substantial restitution, the fact remains that this continuing course of defrauding investors need to be punished, we will ask the court to impose a 10-year state prison sentence which we believe is appropriate considering the scope and breadth of this fraud."

Ms. O'Neill will be sentenced before Superior Court Judge Salem Vincent Ahto on December 10, 2009.