Telemarketing Operator Gets 4-Year Term
SANTA ANA — An operator of a Brea telemarketing firm, which preyed on victims of previous boiler-room frauds and called them “idiots†and “fools†behind their backs, was sentenced Monday to more than four years in federal prison for her role in what prosecutors call one their most egregious fraud cases.
Lori Blitz, 43, of Santa Ana also was ordered by U.S. Dist. Judge Gary L. Taylor to pay restitution of $237,000. Blitz, who pleaded guilty to mail and wire fraud charges, is the first of seven convicted operators and salesmen at Nortay Consultants in Brea to be sentenced.
In a brief statement, Blitz apologized to the victims and to her family for the hardship she caused.
Her attorney, Michael Meza of Santa Ana, said he would appeal the sentence because it was based on a potential loss of $1 million rather than an actual loss of less than half that amount.
In an operation dubbed Senior Sentinel, federal authorities last fall raided Nortay and four unrelated companies in Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties and eventually arrested 15 individuals.
The attack on telemarketing fraud, especially those schemes aimed at the elderly, is one of Atty. Gen. Janet Reno’s top priorities. Federal and state agencies have joined with Canadian authorities to develop ways to curb such fraud.
Nortay was considered one of the worst cases because it targeted victims of previous frauds and because secretly tape-recorded sales pitches and inside information revealed an unusually callous and heartless operation.
Nortay telephone salesmen told fraud victims they would investigate previous frauds and recover some or all of the lost money in exchange for retainer fees that ranged from $100 to more than $8,000. They bullied and sweet-talked 1,100 victims out of $491,000 over a two-year period that ended in April 1995. But the company returned only $11,000.
After hanging up, the operators and salesmen would call the victims “idiots,†“stupid†and “fools.†An 87-year-old Utah man was ridiculed as “Elmer Fudd†after he turned over $8,175 to find money he lost in other scams.
One salesman maintained in court that such telemarketing schemes provide “entertainment for the homebound.†That salesman, Jerry Pierre Ste. Marie, 40, of Long Beach, awaits sentencing Wednesday on his guilty plea.
Ste. Marie and Norman Hefferan, 60, of La Canada Flintridge, another Nortay operator, have prior telemarketing fraud convictions.
Hefferan and three other Nortay defendants are scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 4. A seventh defendant pleaded guilty in federal court in Denver, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Ellyn Lindsay.
