Stephen R. Wigginton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced today that a grand jury returned four one-count Indictments against John Robert Eddy, 29; Cloyd James Holmes, Jr., 50; Gino Christopher Marquez, 31; and Donald Meyers, 43, all of Florida, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud. The charge arose out of a telemarketing scam which operated in Palm Beach County, Florida that bilked over 22,000 victims of $30 million dollars. They victimized consumers in all fifty states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, all ten Canadian provinces and the Northwest Territory of Canada. There were at least 54 victims in twenty seven (28) of the thirty eight (38) counties comprising the Southern District of Illinois.
The indictments alleges that all four men were telemarketers who worked for Creative Vacation Solutions and Universal Marketing Solutions and conducted a telemarketing timeshare resale scheme targeting timeshare owners throughout the United States and Canada. The indictments allege that Creative Vacation Solutions and Universal Marketing Solutions falsely represented that they had found buyers for the consumers’ timeshare interests and solicited fees of up to several thousand dollars from each consumer in purported pre-paid closing costs and related expenses. The indictments allege that the purported sales did not occur, closings were not scheduled as was often represented, and, in fact, Creative Vacation Solutions and Universal Marketing Solutions did not successfully sell any consumer’s timeshare interest. It is further alleged that Creative Vacation Solutions and Universal Marketing Solutions devoted essentially no resources to marketing their clients’ timeshare interest and simply pocketed the purported closing costs.
Several others have been charged in connection with the Creative Vacation Solutions telemarketing scam. On June 30, 2011, Jennifer Kirk pled guilty to a criminal information. She was sentenced on January 9, 2012, to over 16 years imprisonment and five years supervised release. On August 17, 2011, a federal grand jury in East St. Louis charged Steve Folan, Ryan Brazel, and Brian Morris in a multi-count indictment for their involvement in the alleged scheme. Folan, Brazel, and Morris pled guilty and are awaiting sentencing on April 20, 2012, May 25, 2012, and June 15, 2012, respectively. Joel Intravaia pled guilty to conspiracy in an information filed on August 19, 2011. He was sentenced to 60 months imprisonment and three (3) years supervised release on December 9, 2011. Ralph Johnson entered a guilty plea to conspiracy charges filed in a criminal information on September 8, 2011. He was sentenced on December 16, 2011, to 46 months imprisonment and two (2) years supervised release. On September 21, 2011, Kenneth Foote and Joseph Grizzanti were indicted by a federal grand jury in East St. Louis. On October 7, 2011, each filed a consent to transfer their case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in order to plead guilty to the charges there. Sentencing for Foote and Grizzanti is scheduled for March 30, 2012, in the Southern District of Florida. Jeffrey Tracey Fields was charged with conspiracy in a criminal information on October 25, 2011. He filed a consent to transfer his case to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in order to plead guilty to the charges there. John Thomas Egan pled guilty to conspiracy charges filed in a criminal information on January 6, 2012. His sentencing is set for July 16, 2012.
