UPDATE — When she finally spoke in U.S. District Court Tuesday, six months after she was convicted of multiple felonies in the shoreline gifting tables fraud case, Jill Platt offered an explanation to the judge for her participation in the scheme: soaring health insurance costs for her sick husband.
Platt, who did not take the stand during her trial, said she was told the tables were legal by Donna Bello, her co-defendant and the leader of the group.
The judge gave Platt a sentence of four and a half years in jail. The judge gave ringleader Bello six years.
Late today, a third defendant, BetteJane Hopkins, 68, who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, was sentenced to three years probation during which she is required to perform 300 hours of community service. Hopkins co-operated with the government in its investigation of Bello and Platt and agreed to make restitution to the IRS for taxes, penalties and interest for participating in the gifting table scheme. Originally the government sought prison time for her. She was part of the Bello, Platt tables for three years.
Platt told a packed federal courtroom at her sentencing that “I was paying $2,600 a month for health insurance for my husband.”
“I never wanted anything other than to pay my health insurance,” she said again, adding that she deeply regrets her decision to enter and eventually guide the tables.
The federal prosecutor, on the other hand, told the judge that white-collar criminals make such excuses all the time, but that in the end they knowingly rip people off.
In the end, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Alvin W. Thompson sentenced Platt, 65, to the four and a half years in prison along with three years probation and $32,000 in restitution she and Bello must share. He ordered her to surrender by Oct. 15 to start serving her sentence at the federal prison for women in Danbury.
Her attorney, Jonathan J. Einhorn, told the judge he plans an appeal. He later said he plans to ask Judge Thompson to continue Platt’s release on bond until the federal appeal is completed.
In what was the first federal case against gifting tables in the nation, Platt and Bello were convicted in February of multiple felony counts following a 17-day trial in which the U.S. Attorney’s Office called more than 50 witnesses. A jury found Platt and Bello guilty of conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Servce, filing false tax returns, wire fraud and conspiracy. The two women did not take the stand and their attorneys mounted no significant defense. Both women have said they were told the tables were legal.
The U.S. attorney’s office describes a gifting table as a four-level pyramid, with eight participants assigned to the bottom row, four to the third row, two to the second row, and one participant to the top row. The pyramid is dependent upon new participants coming in at the lowest level, each paying $5,000 to the person at the top who gets a total of $40,000. Attracting new participants permits others to move up. If the table fails to attract recruits, the pyramid collapses. The feds estimated more than 1,000 women participated in the tables over a three-year period. They live in Guilford, Branford, Madison, and New Haven.
Packed Courtroom
Bello and Son Gary
Platt’s sentencing, which began shortly after 2 p.m., was supposed to last one hour. Bello’s was to follow. The Platt sentence took three hours to complete. Shortly after 8 p.m., Bello, 57, was sentenced to 6 years in prison, three years probation and an additional $15,000 fine. (Bello is pictured with son Gary in a restaurant shortly before the sentencing.)
The courtroom was packed. Many in the audience were friends of Bello’s husband, Joel Schiavone, a well-known developer, banjo player and former Republican mayoral candidate in New Haven.
One of the women who sat at Platt’s gifting table is Town Clerk Marianne Kelly, who is under federal investigation in connection with her trial testimony in this case. Shortly after the trial ended in February, the U.S. attorney’s office subpoenaed her records. During her testimony she had trouble remembering a key e‑mail she sent. Click here to read about that. Her town hall records were sent to the Internal Revenue Service in New Haven. So far there has been no announced result of that inquiry.
White-Collar Crime Matters
Einhorn said in court this is the first federal prosecution in the nation for gifting table fraud, and this case will serve as a deterrent for others. He also noted that applying punishment in this case is a new undertaking for judges. In addressing the judge, he said the financial losses the judge outlined in gauging the guideline-sentencing numbers were not based on empirical data and were fundamentally flawed.
At the outset the prosecution sought “significant” sentences for both women. Under the federal sentencing guidelines considered by the prosecution those sentences ranged from 11 to 14 years for each woman. But after a recent hearing on the number of victims and the losses involved, the prosecution agreed to lower its numbers and the defense subsequently sought lower sentences. In court Tuesday the judge outlined projected sentences that would range from a little over 7 years to 108-months or 9 years.
Einhorn’s primary argument to the judge when he first heard of the 108-month sentence possibility was that the judge was engaging in a stretch, equating the tables to major securities and bank fraud crime cases when this prosecution was unprecedented. Einhorn said that for the judge to rely on the financial guidelines in this case would send “the case into the stratosphere. “ He asked Judge Thompson for “a reasonable” guidelines sentence.
Einhorn mentioned other federal judges and their sentencing philosophies. He noted that Platt had no previous criminal record, is a caring individual who put her family first, and is at this point in her life a person with no assets. “Her husband is deceased; he passed away before the trial began,” he told the judge.
Platt told the judge she was not a person of means and grew up in a working class family. Her mother was a waitress Her grandfather ran a barber shop. “My poor family has suffered so much, as a result of this case, she said. Meanwhile, relatives were all crying as they looked at the judge from the first row.
Those who spoke to the judge told him Platt would never have gone into the tables if she hadn’t been told they were legal. But even Einhorn later reflected when speaking to television reporters on the sidewalk outside the courthouse that “if it is too good to be true…” Platt, he said, came to realize that. But he maintained that she, too, was duped at the outset.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Morabito noted that many other gifting table participants were duped by Platt. He said there were women who diverted money to pay bills in order to join the tables. They wanted to reach the $40,000 goal. He noted those who took money from retirement accounts, who bought into the false statements based on Platt’s representation. “They relied on her representation that $5,000 would get them $40,000. She withheld information from these people,” he said.
He rebutted Einhorn’s description of Platt as a victim, saying many, many people were lied to about the fraud. “At some point she knew what she was doing was illegal.…This was a substantial criminal operation. They made money at the expense of others.”
He noted that deterrence is important and said despite the publicity of this case, the state attorney general’s investigation, the trial and the conviction, gifting tables continue to operate — specifically, he said, in Southington, right in Hartford County. A federal grand jury is now investigating the tables in that town.
Morabito observed that typically at the sentencing of white-collar criminals efforts are made to diminish the seriousness of the crime. “This is not a murder or a drug dealing operation,”people say.
“Your honor,” he went on, “this is a serious crime. It went on for several years and it wreaked havoc on the shoreline. It deserves prison time.“ Einhorn again countered that at the outset Platt was “just like most of the other women.” He asked for a reasonable sentence.
The judge then took a recess to ponder what he had heard. Forty minutes later he was back on the bench. He asked Platt to stand.
He noted that while there were those who spoke of Platt’s nature, “they are not aware of your culpable conduct.” He returned to trial emails and read snippets of some, emails that showed Platt’s state of mind and her awareness that the tables were not legal at all. And he noted that when Platt’s accountant took the stand, there were plenty of “red flags” but she “didn’t mention” to him why.
In the end, the judge observed that the defendants “preyed on people who were in financial difficulty” because they were driven by the money.
In summing up, the judge said: I do want to make it clear that even white-collar crime cases are serious cases, or they wouldn’t be here.”
Up To 14 Years Sought
When the sentencing memos were first filed in court, the federal prosecutor sought sentences for both women that ranged from 11 to 14 years. By the end of Platt’s sentencing, the judge had stripped off roughly ten years from the 14 years the government wanted for Platt.
And, as it turned out the judge’s sentencing of 54 months for Platt, which will run concurrent with her other convictions, was less than the 57 months Einhorn asked for on the eve of sentence. In a supplemental sentencing memorandum filed on Monday, Einhorn first asked for a non-federal guidelines sentence or probation, but if prison was in the judge’s calculations, he asked for 57 months. In the end, the judge decided on 54 months for Platt.
Even the judge, who said he spent the weekend going over the government’s sentencing calculations from last week’s Fatico hearing (click here to read that story) and the probation department’s recommendations, said at the outset in court Monday that the overall range for Platt could be up to 9 years. Then he took a recess and changed his mind.
In its sentencing memo on Hopkins, the government agreed not to seek a prison sentence of over 30 months in prison, considered high for a defendant who agrees to plead guilty and to cooperate with prosecutors to help make their case against others. Hopkins also reserved her right to seek a non-guidelines sentence, specifically, probation. She said in court papers that her attorney met with government attorneys and she was interviewed by authorities after she pleaded guilty. “I simply want to make everything right,” she wrote.
In the end, Judge Thompson agreed with her attorney that probation was the correct sentence.
Hopkins received at least $89,500 from her participation in the scheme, none of which was reported on her individual income tax returns. She has worked with the IRS to correct her tax status.
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