An investment advisor who pleaded guilty in 2016 of defrauding hundreds of investors of more than $42 million in the 1990s will be resentenced after federal authorities determined that the original sentence of 20 years was more than double the amount of time suggested in his plea agreement, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.
Eric Bartoli operated Cyprus Funds out of Doylestown, Ohio, and authorities asserted that he engaged in a Ponzi scheme affecting approximately 800 investors from 1995 to 1999. The SEC sued Bartoli in 1999, but he did not appear at the hearing, according to previous reporting by the Beacon Journal. After being charged with contempt of court, authorities said that Bartoli fled Ohio, traveling through six states, Europe and Central and South America before becoming a citizen in Peru.
Bartoli then worked as an investment and financial advisor under three different aliases before he was arrested by the Peruvian National Police and was eventually extradited to the United States. In 2016, Bartoli pleaded guilty to eight counts, including securities fraud, the sale of unregistered securities and income tax evasion. At the time, U.S. Attorney Chris Georgalis said Bartoli’s crimes constituted one of the most destructive instances of fraud in the region’s history, likening it to “a nuclear bomb” being set off in rural Ohio, according to the Beacon Journal.
Bartoli’s plea agreement suggested that he receive a sentence as high as 10 years, but the judge in the case sentenced him to 20 years in prison and mandated that Bartoli supply restitution to his victims (while warning them that they’d likely never receive any money). Bartoli appealed the sentencing decision, citing his acceptance of responsibility and arguing he had ineffective counsel during the process, according to the Beacon Journal.
Last December, U.S. attorneys agreed that the court had used incorrect maximum penalties during sentencing. Since Bartoli’s crimes occurred prior to August 1999, the court needed to stick to the maximum 10-year penalty that was applicable to the crimes he committed at that time. Maximum penalties were increased to 20 years only in July 2002 by Congress, the Beacon Journal reported, and in deciding on sentencing, the court would need to stick to the penalty guidelines as they were in 1999.
