Cerilli to spend 9 years in prison
Dennis Cerilli -- con man, swindler and self-styled concert promoter -- used other people's money to finance a lavish lifestyle marked by expensive cars, jewelry and vacations.
But now, the Hempfield Township man will be living the simple life as he spends the next nine years in a federal prison.
Cerilli, 57, on Thursday was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh to serve 51 months in prison on a guilty plea to one count of mail fraud. The sentence will be served consecutively to a previous five-year prison term he received for preying on ill and elderly investors in a bogus investment scam.
Court records show that after bilking 81 victims out of $4.6 million, Cerilli spent the money on expensive cars, clothes, jewelry and golf clubs. He traveled, taking vacations to Florida and Las Vegas. And he purchased a $250,000 house in Hempfield Township that has been seized by the federal government.
Because there is no longer parole in the federal prison system, Cerilli will serve most of the sentence, according to Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck, who initiated the investigation.
A joint probe between Peck's office and the state Attorney General's Office built the case against Cerilli. Peck then asked the U.S. Attorney's Office in Pittsburgh to take over the prosecution.
"We continued our case pending disposition of the federal case," Peck said. "This will end our case once the federal case is officially closed."
Cerilli was serving his initial sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Loretto, Cambria County. Before sentencing, defense attorney Bruce Antkowiak asked U.S. District Court Judge Alan Bloch to sentence Cerilli to a federal prison in Texas so he could be close to his wife, who lives in that state.
The federal Bureau of Prisons will determine where Cerilli will be sent.
Under federal sentencing guidelines, Cerilli's prison term fell within the 41-to-51-month range. Bloch had the option of imposing concurrent or consecutive terms.
The mail fraud charges arose out of a scheme Cerilli concocted to bilk investors out of their money for events he promoted at the Westmoreland Fairgrounds and bogus plans to build a concert amphitheater.
In 1998, Cerilli promoted a rib-and-wing cooking contest and an Oktoberfest celebration at the Mt. Pleasant Township fairgrounds. He admitted pocketing all the gate receipts and failing to pay any of the investors, claiming the events had lost money.
In order to seduce investors in the proposed amphitheater project, Cerilli displayed pictures of earth-moving equipment involved in site preparation, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. However, the government charged that the pictures were taken at an unrelated construction project that Cerilli had no connection with.
Cerilli conned investors out of $833,412 in connection with the events and Oktoberfest celebrations at the fairgrounds and the sale of concessions at the Sugar Creek Amphitheater in Sugarcreek Township, Armstrong County, according to the county and state charges.
He also tried to persuade directors of the Westmoreland Fair and Recreation Association, which owns the fairgrounds, to allow him to build a concert amphitheater on the site. Without waiting for the association's approval, Cerilli began selling exclusive concession rights to investors for parking, food and beverages even though the association eventually rejected the project after his involvement became public.
Before trying to dupe investors in Westmoreland County, Cerilli pitched the same scam in Somerset and Cambria counties. After the Westmoreland County deal collapsed, he tried to promote an identical project in Sugar Creek Township, Armstrong County.
When that deal failed to materialize, Cerilli took his show on the road.
Using the same sales pitch and crude sketches of an amphitheater that he used here, Cerilli enticed investors in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida into making investments in his projects. He has not been charged in any of those cases.
When he surfaced in Georgia in 2001, Cerilli had assumed a phony identity and tried to entice investors in rural Folkston to invest in another amphitheater project. When local businessmen learned of his true identity, Cerilli went to Florida, where he staged some events at the Jacksonville Fairgrounds and tried to generate investor interest in a concert arena in the Jacksonville area.
