A Waimanalo man who swindled friends out of more than $900,000 received an eight-year prison term Tuesday — far more than the prosecutor requested.
The assistant U.S. attorney asked the judge to sentence Turk Cazimero to five years in prison for wire fraud because he said Cazimero, 57, ruined people’s lives by knowingly taking everything they had.
But U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson said a five-year term was not enough for the offense, which involved promoting phony concerts and other events.
Watson also ordered
Cazimero to repay his
18 victims the remaining
$857,760 he owes them, though he acknowledged they likely won’t get back everything.
In a similar case a state judge sentenced Cazimero in 2003 to five years of
probation and ordered
him to repay 11 victims
$192,657. By the time his probation expired in 2008, he had paid back just more than $18,000.
Watson called the state sentence a slap on the wrist.
Since his arrest in April last year, Cazimero had been free on $50,000 unsecured signature bond. His lawyer asked Watson on Tuesday to set a date by which Cazimero needs to turn himself in to begin serving his sentence.
But Watson denied the request and ordered U.S. Marshals Service deputies to immediately take Cazimero into custody.
Richard Conte told the judge he got some of the $305,000 he gave Cazimero by borrowing money off his mother’s Mililani home. The 58-year-old Conte said he used to have a retirement account but is now flat broke, has no credit and expects to lose a home he has in Las Vegas.
“People have killed themselves for less,” he said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence Tong said victims’ marriages crumbled; they lost their businesses, retirement accounts and life savings; and some had to move away because they could no longer afford to live in Hawaii. He said some took out loans and borrowed from family and friends because Cazimero told them they could lose all that they had already invested if they didn’t come up with more money.
Tong said Cazimero even went with one victim to get a credit card advance when the victim had no more money to give.
“What do you do to your enemies if this is what you do to your friends?” Watson said.
Cazimero had been charged with three counts of wire fraud but pleaded guilty to just one count in December in a deal with the prosecutor. That charge involves a married couple getting a $30,000 bank loan to give to Cazimero to promote a concert and rodeo from which they were to receive a share of the profits from ticket sales.
The concert and rodeo never happened. Cazimero used the money on personal expenses.
Tong said Cazimero has been supporting his family through fraud for years, “lying to people straight to their faces.” He said Cazimero uses his friendship, savvy, phony websites, fliers and advertisements to persuade his victims to give him money.
Conte said Cazimero also pretended to be talking on the telephone with people in front of him.
“He’s just completely pathological,” Tong said, “He is cold and calculating. He’s willing to cheat without remorse.”
Watson said Cazimero likely has been ruining people’s lives for his own gain for the past 20 years.
“The state court wasn’t able to stop it,” he said. “I’m stopping it now.”
The maximum penalty for wire fraud is 20 years, but the federal sentencing guidelines suggest a term of about three years.
