Some criminals do not learn their lesson.
Just a few months after being indicted for allegedly bilking investors in his Maplewood office, Germaine Theodore is facing similar charges in a Jersey City case.
Acting State Attorney General John J. Hoffman announced Monday that Theodore, 35, was indicted for allegedly stealing at least $48,000 from clients in the latest case. He was charged in February with stealing $250,000 from clients of his Maplewood firm, TGC Movement.
State officials indicated in their announcement (below) that Theodore allegedly set up the Jersey City fraud after his arrest for the Maplewood case.
See the rest of the release below:
The Division of Criminal Justice
Financial & Computer Crimes Bureau today obtained a state grand
jury indictment charging Theodore, 35, of Maplewood, with third-degree
theft by failure to make required disposition of property received.
Theodore allegedly recruited customers for his purported bill payment
and debt consolidation business, Save My Future, which had an office on
Atlantic Street in Jersey City, by claiming that he could reduce their
monthly bills by 35 percent. He allegedly told clients that if they
paid 65 percent of their bills to Save My Future, plus a fee, the firm
would arrange for their bills to be paid in full. It is alleged that,
in fact, Theodore quickly stopped paying bills for the clients and
instead stole their payments. He allegedly stole more than $48,000 from
clients of Save My Future.
Theodore previously was charged
with second-degree theft in a Feb. 11, 2015 indictment for allegedly
carrying out the same scheme through his company, TGC Movement, Inc.,
on Springfield Avenue in Maplewood. From May 2013 through his arrest on
Oct. 15, 2013, he allegedly stole more than $250,000 from over 200
clients of TGC Movement. The Attorney General’s Office commenced a
civil investigation through the Division of Consumer Affairs in
September 2013 after receiving complaints from numerous customers of
TGC. The Division of Consumer Affairs subsequently referred the matter
to the Division of Criminal Justice for a criminal investigation. The
Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and the Maplewood Police Department
assisted in that criminal investigation.
After his arrest, Theodore posted
bail and, in or about December 2013, opened Save My Future in Jersey
City. In August 2014, he was re-arrested on a warrant charging him with
theft related to numerous complaints from customers of Save My Future.
The Division of Criminal Justice investigated those allegations with
assistance from the Jersey City Police and the Hudson County
Prosecutor’s Office.
“The allegations in this second
indictment show that Theodore’s greed is matched only by his
brazenness,” said Acting Attorney General Hoffman. “No sooner had he
been arrested for allegedly bilking clients out of a quarter of a
million dollars than he posted bail and went back to his old tricks in a
new location. We intend to see that he is punished for all of his
alleged crimes.”
“Instead of helping his victims
recover from debt, Theodore allegedly compounded their problems by
stealing from them,” said Director Elie Honig of the Division of
Criminal Justice. “Theodore’s vulnerable victims needed real financial
remedies, and he sold them snake oil.”
The investigation revealed that
Theodore advertised both TGC Movement and Save My Future as bill payment
and debt reduction services.
Clients were told that if they submitted
their unpaid bills to the companies, along with payment for 65 percent
of the outstanding balance of those bills, the companies would remit
payment in full to the client’s creditors. The companies charged an 8
percent fee to the client. In addition, in the case of Save My Future,
there was a monthly membership fee of $15 if a client’s monthly bills
were less than $1,000, or $25 if they exceeded $1,000. Theodore and
other employees of the companies variously represented to prospective
clients that either funding from a government grant program or private
investors paid the remaining 35 percent of the clients’ bills.
Typically, TGC and Save My
Future initially paid the full amount promised, in order to gain the
trust of the client. In most cases, the client’s bills were paid in
full after the client’s first and second visits to the business.
Thereafter, however, the companies allegedly did not make the promised
payments, and the client’s bills went unpaid, even though the companies
continued to receive 65 percent of the outstanding balance and the 8
percent fee from the client. It is alleged that Theodore operated the
two companies as classic Ponzi schemes, using money from new clients to
pay the first bills submitted by earlier clients.
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