Kaua’i resident David T. Marantette, III, 62, was sentenced Friday by United States District Court Judge Helen Gillmor to 28 months incarceration for his conviction for mail fraud relating to an illegal scheme to sell commodity futures. Marantette faced up
Kaua’i resident David T. Marantette, III, 62, was sentenced Friday by United States District Court Judge Helen Gillmor to 28 months incarceration for his conviction for mail fraud relating to an illegal scheme to sell commodity futures.
Marantette faced up to five years imprisonment.
He was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $336,064 to the victims of his scheme.
United States Attorney Edward H. Kubo, Jr., said that according to information produced in court, Marantette engaged in an illegal scheme to sell commodity futures through various false representations including material omissions concerning Marantette’s background and false representations about how investors funds would be used.
The scheme lasted from the end of 1995 through June 1999, according to a written statement release by the federal prosecutor. During the course of the scheme, Marantette diverted $336,064 of the money he obtained from investors to his own personal use and the use of his company, in direct contradiction of the representations contained in the Troubadour promotional materials, Kubo said.
This case was investigated by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Leslie E. Osborne, Jr.
The sentencing was put off earlier this year for a combination of health matters and restitution questions.
Marantette pleaded guilty in federal court to a charge of mail fraud earlier this year.
The sentencing was to have taken place in late June or early July.
The court gave Marantette additional time not only to follow up on the medical concerns, but to allow him more time to look into a plan to pay back even more restitution than he has already paid, said Brook Hart, Marantette’s attorney in this criminal case.
A court earlier ordered Marantette to pay $1.8 million in restitution in a civil case, Osborne said. Hart did not represent Marantette in the civil matter.
Federal prosecutors stated that Marantette sent literature to various investors claiming he had a track record of profitable trading when he did not, “promised investors that he would only use a certain percentage of their investment for administrative expenses when, in actual practice, he exceeded these limitations.”
He also told investors that there had never been material administrative, civil or criminal actions against his company, Troubadour, Inc., when in 1992 he had signed a consent and stipulation for a final judgment and order of permanent injunction against the operation of Troubadour, Inc. that had been required by the SEC, prosecutors claim.
