U.S. Department
of Justice
United States V. Jennifer Kirk Case No. 11-30093-GPM
Scheduled Event: A hearing on motion to reduce sentence will be held on 3/19/12 at 8:30 a.m. at the U.S. District Courthouse in East St. Louis, Illinois, before Judge G. Patrick Murphy.
Recent Event: On January 9, 2012, Jennifer Kirk was sentenced to 188 months imprisonment, five (5) years supervised release, and a $15,000 fine.
Jennifer Kirk, 31, of Howell, New Jersey, formerly of Lake Worth and Wellington, Florida, entered a guilty plea to a Criminal Information charging her with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud on June 30, 2011, in federal court in East St. Louis, IL, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced today. The charges arose out of a telemarketing scam operated in Florida that bilked over 22,000 victims of $30 million dollars. Kirk victimized consumers in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, all ten Canadian provinces, and the Northwest Territory of Canada. Locally, there were at least 54 victims in twenty seven of the thirty eight counties comprising the Southern District of Illinois.
The charge arose out of a telemarketing scam operated in Florida that bilked over 22,000 victims of $30 million dollars. She 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 (27) of the thirty eight (38) counties comprising the Southern District of Illinois.
Kirk pled guilty on June 30, 2011 to a criminal information which alleged that she operated Universal Marketing Solutions and later Creative Vacation Solutions in Palm Beach County, Florida between October, 2007 and December 1, 2009. She employed telemarketers who placed cold calls to timeshare owners and then falsely represented that their company had actual buyers for the owners’ timeshare property. Her telemarketers then solicited advanced fees of up to several thousand dollars from each victim in purported closing costs that they promised would be refunded to the owner once the closing on the property occurred. Despite collecting fees from 22,000 victims, her companies were not successful in selling a single timeshare unit, the Information alleged. Defendant, and her co-conspirators, the Information alleged, simply pocketed the closing costs.
Several others have been charged in Kirk’s telemarketing scam. On August 17, 2011, a federal grand jury charged Ryan Brazel, Brian Morris and Steve Folan in a multi-count indictment for their involvement in the alleged scheme. Folan pled guilty on November 17, 2011. His sentencing is set for March 9, 2012 in East St. Louis. Trial for Brazel and Morris is currently set for February 27, 2012. 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. In a related prosecution, Darnel Disroe, Michael Lentine, and Michael Starace were each convicted and sentenced to prison for their role in the operation of Real Timeshare Marketing, another timeshare resale scheme operating in Palm Beach County Florida. The indictment charges that Real Timeshare Marketing was a spin-off of Kirk’s Creative Vacation Solutions and used the same fraudulent sales pitch. Lentine was sentenced on January 7, 2011 to 51 months imprisonment and five (5) years supervised release. Starace was sentenced on January 28, 2011 to 18 months imprisonment and five (5) years supervised release. On May 6, 2011, Disroe was sentenced to 121 months imprisonment and five (5) years supervised release.
