Scam artist wants a break

Peter Porcelli says he deserves leniency for his cooperation.

By JEFF TESTERMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published October 29, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [The Appleton Post-Crescent] Peter Porcelli, right, poured $500,000 a year into his Tampa Bay Smokers, a fast-pitch softball team that won world championships in 1996 and 1998. Complete coverage Victims strike back at shady lenders (Oct. 13) Facing new fields of fraud (May 20)

TAMPA - Telemarketing tycoon Peter Porcelli, who collected millions by using a credit card scam to defraud thousands of hard-luck consumers across the country, now faces the prospect of spending the next 20 years in federal prison.

But the 55-year-old Oldsmar resident says he deserves leniency. The reasons he gives: He is cooperating with a grand jury investigation in Tampa. The seriousness of his crimes has been overstated. And he has begun his own rehabilitation by halting his marijuana use after a 38-year addiction.

"Basically, I'll be hat in hand to get whatever relief I can from the judge," said his attorney, Ronald Cacciatore.

Porcelli's sentencing is scheduled this afternoon in East St. Louis, Ill. He is to be sentenced for conspiracy, mail fraud and wire fraud in connection with a telemarketing operation that targeted consumers with credit problems with phony promises for a MasterCard for a fee of $159 to $200.

The operation, with headquarters in Largo, used teams of telemarketers in boiler rooms in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean and India, and defrauded more than 165,000 people, according to charges Porcelli pleaded guilty to in May. Victims who thought they were paying for a MasterCard ended up with a dummy card backed with a phony magnetic strip, while Porcelli and his associates made off with $12.5-million, according to court records.

Porcelli bought a $6.27-million Belleair mansion and poured $500,000 a year into his Tampa Bay Smokers, a fast-pitch softball team that won world championships in 1996 and 1998.

Now, as the government seeks to put him behind bars for a term of between 151/2 and 191/2 years, Porcelli is jockeying to reduce his prison time, pointing to his cooperation with an ongoing criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa.

The investigation, begun by U.S. Postal Inspectors and the Department of Financial Services, focuses on credit counseling and mortgage loans by the Safe Harbour Foundation and Silverstone Lending, which Porcelli and others set up in 2005.

According to a federal lawsuit filed by several homeowners this month, Safe Harbour used false promises to attract homeowners hit with foreclosure, then referred them to Silverstone, which used illegal fees and usurious interest rates to "steal the equity in their homes."

Regarding the telemarketing charges, Porcelli argues that federal officials have overstated the seriousness of his offense by highlighting the number of victims and total amount taken. He contends that the typical victim lost no more than $200, so no one was driven to the poorhouse.

"This is not a situation where anyone was left destitute," Cacciatore said.

Moreover, Porcelli says only a small percentage of the $12.5-million stolen in the telemarketing scheme went into his pocket.

Large amounts of cash went into "the payment of salaries of employees who believed they were operating and working in a legal and legitimate business," Cacciatore says in his motion.

Additionally, the lawyer says, 75 to 85 percent of the gross receipts realized in the telemarketing fraud were paid not to Porcelli but to Assail Inc., a Nevada corporation that partnered with Porcelli in the offer of bogus credit cards.

Cacciatore also says that Porcelli has taken an important step in his rehabilitation by overcoming a long-standing addiction to marijuana. Porcelli used marijuana "almost on a daily basis since he was 17," Cacciatore says, but stopped using it in April, after his initial court appearance on the fraud charges.

Said Cacciatore: "For someone to have an addiction for that long and to go cold turkey, I think is very remarkable."

Jeff Testerman can be reached at 813 226-3422 or testerman@sptimes.com

[Last modified October 28, 2007, 20:48:57]