"Boston pair alleged to take millions in Ponzi scheme" by Evan Allen | Globe Correspondent, March 19, 2013
Steven Palladino was such a high roller at Caesars Atlantic City that the casino regularly flew him and his guests down from Boston in a private jet. He purchased real estate and began building a home with his wife, while buying his mistress gifts and helping pay her rent.
But according to prosecutors on Monday, Palladino, 55, was bankrolling his expenses by running a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme with his wife, Lori, 52, from the office above his ice cream parlor, iScreamWorks on Centre Street in West Roxbury. The victims: his friends and business associates.
Through their company, Viking Financial Group Inc., the West Roxbury couple allegedly said they were a private lending company that borrowed from investors and, in turn, loaned that money out at a higher interest rate.
Instead, according to court documents released Monday at Steven Palladino’s arraignment, the money was used to pay interest to existing investors and to pay for the Palladinos’ vacations, cars, gambling, a $13,000 Rolex watch, and their children’s education.
“At the end of this, I’m afraid, there are going to be a significant number of investors who are out significant dollars, in the millions,” said Suffolk County prosecutor Benjamin Goldberger.
Steven Palladino, who has more than two dozen theft-related convictions on his record, faces a litany of charges related to the scheme after a Suffolk grand jury returned indictments last week. He pleaded not guilty Monday at his arraignment in Suffolk Superior Court.
Lori Palladino is to be arraigned next month on most of the same charges as her husband.
Clerk Magistrate Gary Wilson set Steven Palladino’s bail at $250,000 in cash, over the objections of Palladino’s lawyers, who described their client as a family man with deep ties to his community and a history of charitable donations.
Palladino, said his lawyer, Walter Prince, is “absolutely” 100 percent innocent.
“It’s well worth noting that there is no investor that is out a penny. Every investor has been paid,” said Prince after his client was taken into custody. Palladino “is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and I hope everyone respects that,” Prince said.
Prince described Lori Palladino as an “innocent spouse” who should not have been indicted.
But Goldberger, the prosecutor, painted a much different picture....
“The actual business of the company is essentially no business,” Goldberger said. “It is to take the money from their investors, to use it to make the monthly interest payments to old investors — payments that Mr. Palladino never missed — because that’s the essence of the Ponzi scheme, you have to keep paying people their monthly interest, and you can do whatever you want with the principal, which in this case was to gamble and to support a rather lavish lifestyle.”
So the PRIVATE CENTRAL BANKING SYSTEM the United States economy and monetary policy are based on is a GIANT PONZI SCHEME!
When Viking made loans, Goldberger said, they were often made at such a high interest rate that they were illegal.
When Palladino found out about the indictment, he was on a trip to California....
“It is the Commonwealth’s concern that he has come back here to liquidate as many assets as he can and then abandon Boston,” Goldberger said. “He is somebody who owes millions of dollars, who is going to have a number of very angry investors coming after him.”
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In addition to the $250,000 cash bail, Wilson ordered Palladino to wear a monitoring bracelet, surrender his passport, and not to travel outside Massachusetts without the court’s permission.
Palladino is scheduled to be back in court May 15, according to the Suffolk district attorney’s office.
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Related:
"Steven Palladino, a West Roxbury man accused of running a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme with his wife, posted $250,000 cash bail Tuesday, a day after pleading not guilty at his Suffolk Superior Court arraignment to a litany of charges related to the alleged scheme, said a spokesman for the Suffolk Sheriff’s Department. Palladino was being held at the Nashua Street Jail, said spokesman Peter Van Delft. The conditions of Palladino’s bail require him to wear a GPS ankle bracelet, surrender his passport, and not travel outside Massachusetts without the court’s permission."
Have you seen him lately?
"Bookkeeper’s lawyer denies she had role in Ponzi scheme" by Evan Allen | Globe Staff, April 03, 2013
A West Roxbury woman accused of participating in a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme along with her husband pleaded not guilty Wednesday to 15 charges, including allegations the couple misused a $100,000 investment to buy property for themselves.
Lori Palladino, 52, was released on personal recognizance and $1 million surety following her arraignment in Suffolk Superior Court before Trial Magistrate Gary D. Wilson. Palladino left the courthouse accompanied by her attorney, Philip A. Tracy Jr., without speaking to reporters.
“She was the bookkeeper. And if she wasn’t the wife of the principal, I don’t know if she would have been included in this indictment,’’ Tracy told reporters. “But nevertheless, she is the bookkeeper and that’s it. She did not conduct the business that is in question.”
Lori Palladino and her husband, Steven, are accused of running a Ponzi scheme through their company, Viking Financial Group Inc., targeting their friends and business associates. They claimed to be a private lending company that borrowed from investors and loaned that money out at a higher interest rate.
But Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office alleged that the money was instead used by the Palladinos to pay interest to existing investors and fund vacations, car purchases, gambling trips, their children’s education, and rent and gifts for Steven Palladino’s mistress.
What? The charitable man with deep ties to the community?
“If you think of Steven as the person who was the public face of the company, Lori handled the back office,’’ prosecutor Benjamin Goldberger said in court. “She signs the overwhelming majority of the checks written on the Viking account.”
Goldberger referred to an e-mail from Steven Palladino to an accountant sent Feb. 1, 2012, on which Lori Palladino was copied. The e-mail lists five fraudulent loans worth just under $2.5 million and fake income worth around $560,000, and concludes: “P.S. - don’t forget you need to tell Lori how she is supposed to book these!”
Among other allegations, the couple is accused of misdirecting a $100,000 investment to purchase 29 Kittredge St., a two-family house in Boston.
Lori Palladino is listed in filings as the president, treasurer, secretary, and a director of Viking Financial. The other director listed is the Palladinos’ son, who has not been charged.
Her husband is free on $250,000 cash bail after he pleaded not guilty to 11 charges relating to the alleged scheme. Steven Palladino, 55, who has more than a dozen theft-related convictions on his record, was charged with four counts of larceny over $250, three counts of falsifying corporate books, one count of uttering, and three counts of loansharking.
He also faces four new charges, including withholding evidence, returned by a grand jury on March 28, and will be arraigned on the charges later.
Goldberger said that the grand jury investigation is ongoing, and additional indictments are anticipated.
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And then she was found dead?
Oh, sorry.
Want to get some pizza?
"W. Roxbury Upper Crust will close" April 26, 2013
After four years in business, the independently owned Upper Crust pizza restaurant in West Roxbury plans to close Sunday.
“We’ve loved being here,” said Kelley Santangelo, manager and co-owner. “The community has been very supporting. It’s bittersweet for us and sad, but it’s a lot of work and takes up a lot of our time.”
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The Globe reported this month that the West Roxbury pizzeria was the last remaining franchisee of the Upper Crust chain, which has closed numerous locations and in October filed for bankruptcy protection after mounting financial problems, labor troubles, and disputes between its partners. Some of chain’s locations have reopened....
The closing was announced on the restaurant’s Facebook page on Thursday.
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What do you want to do about lunch?
