Las Vegas Scammer Sentenced For Timeshare Resale Fraud

Stephen R. Wigginton, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced today that Patrick A. Nosack, 34, of Henderson, Nevada, was sentenced yesterday afternoon to thirty months in federal prison in connection with his role in a multi-million dollar timeshare resale scam that operated out of Las Vegas. Nosack was also ordered to pay restitution to his victims and serve five years of supervised release when he is released from federal prison.

The sentence arose out of a telemarketing scam which operated in Las Vegas, Nevada. The scheme bilked over 3,000 victims of approximately 10 million dollars. Consumers were victimized in all fifty states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, all ten Canadian provinces and the Northwest Territory of Canada, as well as Australia, Israel and the United Kingdom. There were at least twelve victims in nine of the thirty-eight counties comprising the Southern District of Illinois.

Evidence revealed that Nosack was a telemarketer at a telemarketing company, called Vacation Max, which operated a timeshare resale scam. The company purported to be a Georgia corporation located in Delaware, but actually operated in Las Vegas, Nevada in office space leased in the name of "Hot Girls Entertainment." The company falsely represented that they had found corporate buyers interested in acquiring blocks of timeshare units including the consumer's timeshare unit for purported business and tax purposes. The company solicited fees of up to several thousand dollars from each timeshare owner in purported pre-paid closing costs and related expenses. The purported sales did not occur and Vacation Max did not successfully sell any consumer’s timeshare interest except a relatively small number at fire sale prices.

This prosecution is one of nearly 100 timeshare resale fraud prosecutions brought in the Southern District of Illinois over the past four years. The case is part of an ongoing investigation by the St. Louis Field Office of the Chicago Division of the United States Postal Inspection Service. The prosecution of this case was handled by Assistant United States Attorneys William E. Coonan and Michael Hallock.