Guilty plea in credit card scam
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A Romanian man pleaded guilty to a “phishing” scheme in which he stole money by obtaining credit card information from counterfeit e-mails and Web sites he set up in the name of Bridgeport-based People”™s United Financial Inc.
Official say Ovidiu-Ionut Nicola-Roman, 22, and five other Romanians stole at least $150,000, also designing phony e-mail campaigns and Web sites for Citigroup Inc., Capital One Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. Inc., Comerica Bank, Wells Fargo & Co., and eBay Inc.
Nicola-Roman was arrested in Bulgaria in June 2007. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October, and faces a maximum prison sentence of five years and a maximum fine of $250,000.
Credits roll on Trans-Lux screens
Trans-Lux Corp. sold off its small cinema division for $24.5 million to Marwit Capital, a private-equity investor based in Newport Beach, Calif., that already owns the largest theater chain in northern California.
Norwalk-based Trans-Lux indicated it would use proceeds to repay loans owed to Bridgeport-based People”™s United Financial Inc.
As late as April, Trans-Lux had indicated plans to expand on its 10 cinemas in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. The division had an operating profit of $3.3 million last year on $14.3 million in revenue.
Trans-Lux retains its outdoor billboard and indoor signage divisions, which produced a $200,000 profit in the first quarter on $7.9 million in revenue, a slight decrease from a year earlier.
Zam Zam honcho gets 42 months
The founder of a defunct Bridgeport telephone card business got a 42-month prison sentence following a conviction on commercial bribery and money laundering charges.
Fares Khraisat, a Jordanian citizen who lived in Easton, pleaded guilty in February to paying more than $400,000 to a former sales executive of iBasis Inc., seeking favorable treatment from the Burlington, Mass., company that operates an Internet-based international telephone network.
Khraisat was ordered by U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill to forfeit the Easton house he bought for $1.9 million; a business storefront in Bridgeport he purchased for $1 million; and an automobile he bought for $200,000.
The former iBasis employee Jonathan Kaplan pleaded guilty last November to wire fraud and tax evasion, and at deadline had yet to be sentenced.