Tartaglione Ordered To Forfeit More Than $2.4 Million From Fraud Scheme

United States District Court Judge Joel H. Slomsky on Wednesday ordered Renee Tartaglione to forfeit $2.4 million in proceeds from her scheme to defraud the Juniata Community Mental Health Clinic. Tartaglione was convicted in June 2017, on all 53 counts of conspiracy, theft, fraud and tax evasion. Tartaglione siphoned some $2 million from the clinic of which she was president, and used some of that money to improve a building she owned that then appreciated in value.

“There’s a long list of victims in this case,” said U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain. “The economically disadvantaged served by the clinic deserved better. The guilty verdict, and now the Judge’s forfeiture order, bring a measure of justice for those victims.”

Judge Slomsky ordered the forfeiture to be paid from the proceeds from the sale of Tartaglione’s properties on 3^rd Street and 5^th Street in Philadelphia, as well as two homes at the New Jersey shore.  

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bea L. Witzleben and Department of Justice Trial Attorney Peter Halpern.

The 2016 indictment charged that Tartaglione purchased the building on 3^rd Street in Philadelphia, which housed the clinic, and then raised the rent, repeatedly, causing the clinic’s rent for the building to increase from $4,500 per month to $25,000 per month. 

Tartaglione’s company, Norris Hancock LLC, also purchased the building on 5^th Street and, in December 2012, leased it to the clinic under a lease that called for rent of $35,000 per month for the first two years, and $75,000 per month for the next three years.  The market rent for that building was $23,000 per month.