On October 30, 2023, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that New Jersey Attorney, Scott Marinelli, who has been suspended in July 2021, pleaded guilty to six counts of wire fraud as well as six counts of aggravated identity theft.
Between November of 2017 to April 9, 2018, Scott Marinelli admitted to participating in a scheme to defraud victims of proceeds from the sales of six properties. He acted as a real estate broker, also a title agent and directed a mortgage company to wire loan funds to him for the sale of the properties. Furthermore, Lawyer Scott Marinelli also admitted that instead of properly dispersing the funds from the mortgage company, he used the funds for his own personal benefit. He allegedly was hired by multiple victims as the owner of Mountain Lakes Abstract Company in Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania and unfortunately sold all their properties without their consent.
As part of his scheme, he stole the identities of the property sellers, a notary public, a title agent, and an accountant. In addition, Marinelli currently faces other unrelated charges in federal court in Washington D.C as well as court in the State of New Jersey. This case was investigated by the District Attorney’s Office of Monroe County and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Marinelli is facing a maximum total of 120 years in Federal Prison for the wire fraud charges and must serve an additional 2 to 12 years for the aggravated identity theft charges. The Judge will be following up with a sentencing after a review of the applicable federal sentencing statues and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
