Michael Mann, $100M Fraud, New York 2022

Grimy Times Exclusive: Michael T. Mann, 51, was sentenced to 144 months in prison for running a complex scheme that caused more than $100 million in losses to banks, financing companies, and other businesses in New York.

The announcement was made by Acting United States Attorney Antoinette T. Bacon and Janeen DiGuiseppi, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Sentencing Date: Not specified, but the crime occurred from 2013 to September 2019, and Mann pled guilty on August 12, 2020. The sentencing likely occurred in 2022.

Mann, the CEO of ValueWise Corporation and subsidiary companies including MyPayrollHR.com LLC, admitted to engaging in a fraudulent scheme to deceive banks and financing companies into loaning his companies tens of millions of dollars. He stole and diverted millions of dollars entrusted to his payroll companies and engaged in the daily kiting of millions of dollars among bank accounts he controlled.

The scheme collapsed in late August and early September 2019, when one of his banks froze his accounts, setting off a chain of events that left his payroll companies unable to process payroll and tax payments for hundreds of small business customers nationwide. Mann was ordered to serve 3 years of post-imprisonment supervised release and to pay restitution to victims in the total amount of $101,038,793.31.

Mann’s scheme had multiple layers, including obtaining tens of millions of dollars in loans from three financing companies by falsifying his companies’ revenues and receivables. He created fake invoices reflecting the fictitious debt and assigned them to the financing companies as collateral for the loans.

Mann was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, nine counts of bank fraud, and one count of filing a false tax return. This case should serve as a deterrent to businesspeople who would seek to lie, cheat and steal their way to success.

Related Federal Cases