Ponzi schemer sentenced to 7 years

He swindled religious Jews who trusted him to make honest investments. But he was using their money to splash out on vacations, gambling and luxury cars.

On Tuesday, Shayeh Dov was sent to federal prison for more than seven years for the Ponzi scheme.

Dov had pleaded guilty on Feb. 7 on a wire fraud count after prosecutors said he “was the mastermind behind an affinity fraud scheme that targeted members of the Orthodox Jewish community in South Florida and New York.”

Dov, 49, of North Miami Beach, was sentenced to 87 months in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $3,087,972 in restitution to his victims.

According to the court record, from May 2012 through May 2019, Dov “exploited the community’s close bonds of trust to obtain money for investments.”

He persuaded more than 30 people to invest in bogus real estate. The losses are estimated at more than $3 million, according to records.

Using high-pressure sales tactics, Dov bought, sold and offered investors mortgage notes at a discount because, he claimed, those notes were attached to delinquent or foreclosed real estate, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. fraudulent

To induce people to invest, Dov falsely claimed he maintained inside connections to financial institutions, and told victims that they had a very limited window to buy the notes, according to federal prosecutors.

But those properties were not actually for sale. In at least one instance, Dov sold the same note to two different investors within five days.

The victims told authorities they had trusted Dov. One said their family had ponied up $51,000 in hopes of using the investment to help pay for one of their children’s weddings, and support their younger children. But the investment never materialized and “there were excuses every month,” the victim wrote. “Shayeh said this was normal, not to worry.”

“I still find it hard to believe that a ‘religious’ man would come to temple daily and pray to the Almighty and then steal from his community friends. That is certainly not what our faith is about. I am sickened,” the victim wrote in the letter.

“The defendant was motivated to steal by personal greed,” according to documents filed in federal court. He used his money to finance his high-spending lifestyle, including buying a Lexus, a Maserati, a Range Rover and a Jaguar, and on trips to New York, Israel and the Bahamas.