Danbury-based list brokerage firm Macromark has pleaded guilty to knowingly providing lists of potential victims to fraudulent mass-mailing schemes.
The U.S. Department of Justice says the fraudulent schemes tricked consumers into paying fees for falsely promised cash prizes and purportedly personalized “psychic” services. Thousands of consumers lost $9.5 million to the schemes. The information alleges that Macromark specifically helped fraudulent mass mailers both acquire lists of potential victims to defraud and sell their lists of victims to other mass mailers.
The Justice Department says company executives and employees engaged in this conduct despite knowing that their clients were mailing hundreds of thousands of deceptive prize notifications that misled victims into believing that they would receive a cash prize or personalized services upon payment of a fee.
Macromark’s plea follows a separate guilty plea by former Executive Vice President Steven Keats in July 2018 to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. In March, former Senior Vice President Norman Newman was indicted by a Connecticut Grand Jury for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, along with fifteen counts of wire fraud.
Under the terms of Macromark’s guilty plea, the company would be sentenced to three years of probation, forfeiture and fines totaling $1,000,000, and be required to cooperate with any related government investigation or prosecution. The final sentence awaits a ruling from the federal court overseeing the case.
