LawFuel – Legal Newswire – A Miami woman was sentenced today to 78 months in prison, followed by a three-year term of supervised release, in connection with fraudulent business opportunity sales at a Miami firm, the Justice Department and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service announced. Lillian Glaubman was also ordered to pay $18,154,938 in restitution to the approximately 737 victims of the scheme.
The company, Pantheon Holdings, a/k/a Internet Machine Company, purported to sell a business opportunity involving Internet kiosks. Potential purchasers were falsely told that for approximately $18,000, Pantheon would, among other things: perform all the legwork of the business; find viable, high-traffic locations to place the kiosks; relocate any kiosk that underperformed; and place national advertisements on the kiosk.
Glaubman and her co-conspirators told business opportunity purchasers that they would earn substantial profits when members of the public used the kiosk to access the Internet for a fee, and from revenue generated by advertisements that Pantheon would place on the kiosks. In fact, the locations where machines were placed drew almost no business, and no advertising was done on the machines.
Glaubman worked through a related business called Marketing Workforce Providers. Glaubman was in charge of the administration for Pantheon, and among other things maintained the finances, concealed the identities of the principals and lulled consumers into a false sense of security.
Glaubman’s conviction and sentence brings to 14 the number of individuals convicted and sentenced in connection with the Pantheon fraud. In July, Glaubman pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and one count of mail fraud.
The Pantheon case was prosecuted by Jill Furman and Richard Goldberg with the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Consumer Litigation.
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 www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.
