Rashell Ortiz, Wire Fraud, Pennsylvania 2024

An Ohio woman who defrauded hundreds of victims in an advance-fee scheme involving high-end handbags and other luxury goods has been sentenced to 20 months in prison.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Rashell Ortiz, 23, of Grove City, Ohio, was sentenced on January 2024 by United States District Court Judge Gerald J. Pappert to 20 months in prison, three years supervised release, restitution of $130,255, and a $600 special assessment for her role in the scheme.

Ortiz was charged by indictment in January 2024 with six counts of wire fraud, and in December was convicted of all charges at trial.

As proven at trial, from October 2019 to November 2021, Ortiz and her boyfriend, Orvil Cataquet Jr., 25, of Syracuse, New York, marketed items, predominantly luxury purses, through online sales platforms like Poshmark and Offer Up. Throughout the scheme, they posed as a young female who was selling the bags at reduced prices because she was going through a divorce and wanted to get rid of her ex-husband's gifts. They offered interested buyers a discount to conduct the transaction through a third-party money transfer app such as Zelle, CashApp, Venmo, Google Pay, or PayPal.

Once they received the victims' money, they failed to deliver the goods and eventually ceased contact. In all, Ortiz and Cataquet Jr. defrauded more than 300 victims, some of whom resided in the greater Philadelphia region out of approximately $130,225, which they used to fund their lifestyle of frequent food deliveries and video games.

Cataquet Jr. pleaded guilty to wire fraud last year and was sentenced in October to 14 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and $156,074 in restitution.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/ohio-woman-who-defrauded-hundreds-victims-advance-fee-scheme-involving-high-end