{"id":461,"date":"2017-02-02T11:16:59","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T16:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/?p=461"},"modified":"2017-02-02T11:16:59","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T16:16:59","slug":"holiday-city-financial-advisor-pleads-guilty-to-senior-thefts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2017\/02\/holiday-city-financial-advisor-pleads-guilty-to-senior-thefts\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday City Financial Advisor Pleads Guilty to Senior Thefts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_462\" style=\"width: 430px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-462\" class=\"size-full wp-image-462\" src=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Martorana.jpg\" alt=\"Peter Martorana (Photo: OCPO)\" width=\"420\" height=\"559\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Martorana.jpg 420w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Martorana-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Martorana-316x420.jpg 316w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 420px) 100vw, 420px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-462\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peter Martorana (Photo: OCPO)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A financial advisor whose business served clients in the Holiday City senior development has pleaded guilty to stealing money from his customers.<\/p>\n<p>Peter Martorana, 62, of Wall Township, pled guilty Wednesday\u00a0to one count of financial facilitation of criminal activity in excess of $500,000, a crime of the first degree. The state has recommended Martorana be sentenced to 10 years in New Jersey State Prison, with a period of parole ineligibility of 4 years. \u00a0Sentencing is scheduled for July 7, 2017, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor&#8217;s Office.<\/p>\n<p>Martorana served as an investment and financial advisor with an office located in Holiday City, Della Fave said. For the time period between Dec.\u00a02006 and\u00a0Aug.\u00a02013, he said, Martorana had various elderly victims write checks to himself as well as his business \u2013\u00a0Retirement Benefit Specialist \u2013 under the guise that he would invest their savings. He never invested the money, but instead used them for his own benefit.\u00a0 The victims were primarily in their 70s, 80s and 90s, said Della Fave.<\/p>\n<p>The matter was investigated by Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Economic Crimes Unit Detective James Conroy, with assistance from OCPO Lt. Vincent Petrecca. Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Martin Anton prosecuted the case for the State.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ocean County has a senior population that is particularly vulnerable to fraudsters like Martorana,&#8221; said Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato. &#8220;This should send a message to others of his ilk that such behavior will not be tolerated. Anyone entrusting their money to a financial adviser should be sure they are reputable and properly licensed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2017\/02\/holiday-city-financial-advisor-pleads-guilty-to-senior-thefts\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A financial advisor whose business served clients in the Holiday City senior development has pleaded guilty to stealing money from his customers. Peter Martorana, 62, of Wall Township, pled guilty Wednesday\u00a0to one count of financial facilitation of criminal activity in excess of $500,000, a crime of the first degree. The state has recommended Martorana be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[182,181,180,11],"class_list":["post-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-police-fire-courts","tag-fraud","tag-holiday-city","tag-peter-martorana","tag-toms-river-nj-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Martorana.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}