AKRON, Ohio — A former securities broker in Ohio will be re-sentenced for a Ponzi scheme that victimized hundreds of investors in the 1990s.
Prosecutors said Eric Bartoli and his co-conspirators swindled U.S. and Latin American investors out of tens of millions of dollars by selling them unregistered securities. Bartoli fled the country, was arrested by Peruvian police in 2013, and pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges in the U.S. in 2016 before being sentenced to 20 years in prison.
A federal judge in Akron vacated that sentence after prosecutors recently conceded that the maximum penalties considered in determining it were incorrect and too high, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.
It’s unclear whether that will mean a shorter sentence for Bartoli. His first sentence was double the recommendation in his plea agreement.
Bartoli, 65, will be assigned a new attorney for the eventual re-sentencing.
