A Rockland man who pretended to be a registered broker and to buying stocks and cryptocurrency for investors has been sentenced to prison for five years.
U.S. District Court Judge Nelson S. Román also ordered Jeffrey Tognetti Jr., 27, to pay back $1.4 million to 19 victims and to forfeit three luxury cars, on Jan. 13 in White Plains federal court.
From summer 2022 to summer 2023, Tognetti, formerly of Piermont, tricked investors into thinking that he worked for a hedge fund as a registered broker, that he had created technology that enabled him to trade cryptocurrency profitably, and that their investments were growing.
He was never registered, did not work for a hedge fund, and did not invest the money.
Instead, he used his clients’ money to rent luxury cars, buy expensive jewelry, gamble on sports betting sites, and frequent expensive clubs, assistant prosecutor Jennifer N. Ong stated in a sentencing letter to the judge.
Ong said some investors lost their life savings, had to borrow money to pay for living expenses, sell valuable assets, or refinance their homes. One investor and his wife who lost their home now work at six jobs to make ends meet.
Tognetti pleaded guilty to wire fraud and agreed to a plea deal that called for 51 to 63 months in prison. Ong recommended 63 months.
Even after Tognetti was arrested and released from custody, she noted, he was arrested on a grand larceny charge for agreeing to buy a Rolex watch for $14,900, not paying for it, and reselling it for $11,500.
She said the U.S. Probation Office found it particularly troubling that Tognetti bought a luxury watch while owing more than $1 million to the people he defrauded.
A 63-month prison sentence “is necessary to reflect the seriousness of the offense,” Ong told the judge, “and provide just punishment.”
Tognetti’s public defender, Rachel Martin, recommended imprisonment for four years, in a letter to Judge Román.
She described a childhood in a family “defined by intense familial dysfunction.” His father was often drunk. His mother was cold and unaffectionate and verbally abusive. His parents quarreled and eventually separated.
Tognetti coped with the chaotic home life by overeating. When he became morbidly obese, he was bullied. After two grandparents died when he was a teenager, he committed himself to losing weight through exercise and healthier eating.
But the emotional blows continued, she told the judge. The father whose love and approval he craved “accustomed him to lying.” His relationship with a former high school girlfriend was toxic, and when they broke up “his self-esteem was in tatters.”
That’s when his criminal conduct began.
“He had completely lost his way, morally and ethically, and took advantage of others,” Martin said.
But it also was around the time that he began dating another woman, married her, and, just days before his arrest, became the father of a girl.
“For the first time,” Martin said, “he is part of a loving and calm family unit.”
Tognetti feels deep remorse and shame for his conduct, she said. He is pained to know that he will miss his daughter’s toddler years. He is dedicated to finding a job and to paying restitution to the victims. And he is committed to getting mental health treatment “to unpack some of the unprocessed trauma from his childhood.”
