Florida Man Convicted in $278M Ponzi Scheme

Baltimore, Maryland – In a shocking turn of events, Richard Shusterman, 53, of Highland Beach, Florida, was convicted of conspiring to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud in connection with a complex scheme to defraud investors and lenders of $278 million by selling fraudulent investment portfolios of debts purportedly owed by hospital patients.

Shusterman, a shareholder and president of International Portfolio, Inc. (IPI), was the fourth and final conspirator to be convicted in the scheme.

The conviction was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Kevin Perkins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Baltimore Field Office; and Special Agent in Charge Andre R. Watson of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

“Richard Shusterman and his co-conspirators perpetrated a brazen and complex Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of more than $278 million,” said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein. “The conspirators pretended that they were repaying investors with revenue earned by collecting debts, but they were really using the money of new victims to repay previous investors.”

According to trial evidence, Shusterman and co-conspirator Robert Feldman, part owner of IPI and president of United Consulting, Inc., represented that IPI had experience in the purchase, valuation, collection and resale of medical accounts receivable, comprising of past due patient accounts which the hospitals and other entities selling the accounts had been unsuccessful in collecting.

The scheme involved the purchase and sale of over $4.1 billion in medical accounts receivable, comprising more than 3,872,514 past due patient accounts, with IPI paying more than $25 million to purchase these accounts between December 2006 and June 2008.

Shusterman and IPI agreed to manage the collection activity for each debt portfolio that IPI sold, with any funds collected being forwarded to escrow accounts opened and maintained by ARS, which would use the funds to cover the periodic interest payments and outstanding balances owed to the investors.

Fraudulent inflation of purchase prices for IPI debt portfolios was used to obtain larger investor loans, with Shusterman agreeing to kickback loan proceeds in excess of the true purchase prices to co-conspirators Jonathan Rosenberg and Douglas Kuber.

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