By Jill Fox
A Parkland man was among six South Florida residents indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday.
Paul Geraci, 45, and five others were charged with defrauding investors of approximately $21 million by false claims. The suspects allegedly told their investors their money would go towards the development of a mobile gaming application. However, the app was neither launched nor generated any revenue.
The fraud scheme, operated out of Broward and Palm Beach counties, targeted investors throughout the United States.
Geraci, along with Gerald Parker, 78, Michael Assenza, 44, Ted Romeo, a/k/a “Ted Lamar,” 62, Paul Vandivier a/k/a “Dough Wright,” 61, and Cindy Vandivier a/k/a “Madison Brooke” a/k/a “Madison Brookes,” 64, were charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud.
According to the indictment, the six defendants fraudulently sold stock in a company called Social Voucher.com, Inc. In 2013, Parker and Assenza created Social Voucher to develop a mobile gaming application, which was supposed to earn revenue from users buying products in the application. Parker hired “boiler room salespeople,” including Geraci, to personally solicit investors and hire other sales agents to sell shares of Social Voucher stock to investors via telemarketing.
Geraci, who lives in Parkland Golf & Country Club, was also charged with substantive wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and substantive money laundering.
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