A hedge fund founder from Great Neck has admitted conning investors and financial institutions out of $65 million in a Ponzi scheme over a six-year span.
Jeffrey Soberman Parket pleaded guilty Wednesday at Manhattan federal court to charges of bank fraud and wire fraud affecting a financial institution.
“Parket traded on his reputation as a respected financier and fabricated paper assets to defraud lenders of millions of dollars in loans that they never would have made if not for his lies and the sophisticated ruses he used to support those lies,” said Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. “His scheme cost some of his victims everything they had.”
Prosecutors said the 59-year-old man fabricated assets, doctored bank and brokerage statements, and forged business correspondence and signatures from at least 2016 through December 2021.
He also persuaded family members to transfer funds to his personal accounts by falsely promising to safely invest their life savings on their behalf, then used the funds to pay down fraudulently obtained loans, authorities said.
He faces up to 30 years in federal prison when he is sentenced on June 28 by U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil.
