{"id":8251,"date":"2022-09-23T17:19:09","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T21:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/?p=8251"},"modified":"2022-09-23T17:19:09","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T21:19:09","slug":"ortley-beach-man-pleads-guilty-to-bilking-friend-out-of-230k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2022\/09\/ortley-beach-man-pleads-guilty-to-bilking-friend-out-of-230k\/","title":{"rendered":"Ortley Beach Man Pleads Guilty to Bilking Friend Out of $230K"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_12188\" style=\"width: 790px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lavallette-seaside.shorebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/hammond.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12188\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12188\" src=\"https:\/\/lavallette-seaside.shorebeat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/hammond.jpg\" alt=\"John Hammond\" width=\"780\" height=\"470\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-12188\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">John Hammond<\/p><\/div>\n<p>An Ortley Beach man pleaded guilty this week to a charge of theft by deception after having bilked a friend out of $230,000 in a phone investment scheme.<\/p>\n<p>John Hammond, 70, of Ortley Beach, plead guilty this week before Superior Court Judge Guy P. Ryan. At the time of his sentencing on Nov. 18, 2022, the state will be recommending a term of seven years in New Jersey state prison. Hammond will also be required to make restitution to the victim in the amount of $230,000.<\/p>\n<p>According to a statement from prosecutors, an investigation performed by the Toms River Township Police Department Detective Bureau revealed that between May 2017 and Feb. 2019, Hammond deceived a friend by convincing him to invest $230,000 with him, promising large returns on his investment.<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of nearly two years, the victim deposited large sums of money into Hammond\u2019s bank account \u2013 under the false impression that Hammond would be transferring the money into an investment account purportedly set up in the victim\u2019s name. When the victim asked Hammond to withdraw a sum of money from the investment account, Hammond \u201cperpetuated his scheme by creating fraudulent financial documents purporting to be from Fidelity Investments,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators ultimately concluded that Hammond never invested the victim\u2019s money, never set up an investment account on the victim\u2019s behalf, but instead \u201cused the victim\u2019s money for his own personal benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hammond surrendered himself at Toms River Township police headquarters Sept. 8, where he was processed and charged on a summons pending future appearances in Ocean County Superior Court.<\/p>\n<p>Assistant Prosecutor Taylor Toscano handled the case in court.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2022\/09\/ortley-beach-man-pleads-guilty-to-bilking-friend-out-of-230k\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Ortley Beach man pleaded guilty this week to a charge of theft by deception after having bilked a friend out of $230,000 in a phone investment scheme. John Hammond, 70, of Ortley Beach, plead guilty this week before Superior Court Judge Guy P. Ryan. At the time of his sentencing on Nov. 18, 2022, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1080,1678,30,11],"class_list":["post-8251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-fire-courts","tag-featured","tag-john-hammond","tag-ortley-beach","tag-toms-river-nj-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/hammond.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8251","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=8251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}