The owner of a former Westport investment firm was sentenced to 20 months in prison today in federal court in New Haven after pleading guilty to interstate transportation of money obtained from fraud.
U.S. District Judge Mark R. Kravitz sentenced Anthony Iati, 48, of York, Pa., to 20 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for defrauding investors in his company of more than $500,000.
He had pleaded guilty to the charge in February. (See WestportNow Feb. 26, 2009)
Iati was the owner of Great River Capital, LLC, formerly of 191 Post Road West in Westport. Court documents showed investors lost as much as $700,000 in connection with the company which sold jewelry to department stores.
In order to finance the company while the company awaited payment from its customers, Iati obtained funds from investors, prosecutors said. In December 2006 and January 2007 an investor sent funds from Pennsylvania to the Westport firm, they said.
At the time of the interstate transportation of funds, Iati knew that he had already converted the investors’ funds for a real estate investment and was not using the funds as he had represented, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
Iati said he used investment money to buy real estate in Norwalk with the intention of selling it at a profit. But the deal collapsed and three of his jewelry investors lost substantial funds.
Kravitz ordered Iati to repay Anthony DiValerio and Andrew Morse, both investment bankers from Pennsylvania, $203,218 and $150,979 respectively. The amount owed to a third investor, Kevin Adams, will be determined during an Aug. 20 hearing.
Iati is a former high school and college basketball star.
Among letters to the judge seeking compassion was one from Jeff Ruland, a two-time NBA all-star who spent last year as an assistant coach with the Philadelphia 76ers, according to the Connecticut Post.
Ruland, who lives in Stamford, was a teammate and roommate of Iati when the pair played for Iona College.
“Tony is like a brother to me … He did what he thought he had to in a desperate situation,” Ruland wrote Kravitz, “and realizes now what terrible choices he made.”
Iati, who must report to prison Sept. 9, now lives with his parents in York.
It is there that he earned High School All-American status as a 5-foot-9 point guard with York Catholic High, which he helped win a state championship.
A onetime investment banker with Bear Stearns & Co., Iati started a jewelry business in 1994 in Mount Vernon, N.Y. known as J. Anthony Jewelry Co.
