Vania May Bell was sentenced to federal prison for six years and eight months on Oct. 11 for her role in a $11.4 million Ponzi scheme at her family’s financial planning firm in Rockland County.
U.S. District Judge Nelson S. Roman also ordered her to forfeit $589,942 she received in salary and benefits and pay $8,041,233 in restitution.
Her attorneys had recommended a lenient sentence, depicting her as a victim of manipulations by her father, Hector May, the founder and president of Executive Compensation Planners Inc. in New City.
“But for her father,” attorneys Elizabeth K Quinn and Benjamin Gold argued in a sentencing letter, “she would never have become involved in this criminal scheme.”
But federal prosecutors recommended a longer prison sentence, describing May as “ruthless and seemingly sociopathic” for pilfering the retirement savings of friends, relatives, the elderly and blue collar workers for 16 years.
May founded ECP in 1982. Bell joined the firm in 1993 and worked as the comptroller and chief compliance officer.
They persuaded clients to move funds to ECP from outside brokerage accounts, on the assurance that ECP could buy bonds directly and avoid transaction fees.
But instead of buying bonds, according to court records, they used client funds for personal and business expenses, and they created fake account statements to conceal the crime.
When clients asked to redeem bonds, May and Bell used the stolen funds, in a classic Ponzi scheme, to pay the client and keep the fraud going undetected.
May, 81, or Orangeburg, Rockland County, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, in 2018. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison, and ordered to forfeit $11.5 million in ill-gotten gains and pay $8,041,233 in restitution. He is imprisoned at USP Canaan in Waymart, Pennsylvania.
Bell, 57, of Montvale, New Jersey, pled guilty this past March to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Her attorneys described her childhood as tumultuous. Her parents often fought, her mother withheld attention, her father was physically abusive — hitting her with a flyswatter in one instance and pulling her hair in another — and the family often had to borrow money for basic living expenses because Hector May was often out of work or had lost money on business ventures.
She married and raised two children, but in 2010 she aborted a non-viable pregnancy. Three months later, her husband, Richard Bell, died from skin cancer that had spread to the brain and lungs.
She was now the primary caretaker for a 9-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl who were struggling with the loss of their father.
By then, the Ponzi scheme had been in play for at least nine years.
Bell’s attorneys argued that May manipulated his daughter to assist, and they said she did not live a lavish lifestyle, in comparison to her father.
“Ms. Bell’s actions stemmed from her devotion to her father and her inability to question him, as well as her own desperation throughout the pendency of the crime,” her lawyers stated in a followup sentencing letter on Oct. 7.
“Ms. Bell is a devoted mother whose blind loyalty to her father corrupted herself and caused her to join a criminal scheme that led to the financial ruin of many innocent victims” for which she is extremely remorseful.
Federal prosecutors Vladislav Vainberg, Margery Feinzig and Derek Wikstrom advised the court that Bell was an essential participant to the conspiracy. She processed the clients’ money, helped create the phony account statements, and solicited clients for new money as she and her father drained the funds.
In 2016, Bell recorded a conversation with two employees.
“I am the backbone that saves his butt in every promise he (Hector May) makes out there,” she said.
“There is nothing in this office that I don’t know, haven’t touched, haven’t seen, haven’t done, haven’t taught. Everyone is always intimidated by the time I come in or the things I get to do personally that I’ve earned over time based on my life circumstances. It’s what we call the perk of being the boss’s daughter.”
“My Dearest Vania,” May wrote in a December 25, 2016 note to his daughter, “you have always been there for me. You always watch my back. I couldn’t do it without you. Love, Daddy.”
Prosecutors said the crime was devastating. Clients had to sell their houses or postpone retirement. Many had counted May and Bell as trusted friends.
The daughter of a carpenter and pizzeria worker, 82, told investigators, “Vania not only stole from our parents, but their children and grandchildren. She stole their self-esteem, their sense of security, their entire life savings and has destroyed their dreams.”
“This fraud was not aberrant,” prosecutors stated in their sentencing memo. “It was not a lapse in judgement, or a momentary slip-up. Whatever positive qualities Bell may have, she also helped her father carry on a lucrative fraud for over 20 years.”
