10-15-04 -- Hyppolite, Ronald et al. -- Guilty Pleas -- News Release

Five Plead Guilty in Massive Identity Theft from Major New Jersey Real Estate Company

NEWARK - Two Irvington men who pleaded guilty today were among five altogether who admitted guilt this week, in a scheme to steal personal and confidential credit report profiles of approximately 3,774 customers of Weichert Financial Services, Inc., of Morris Plains, affiliated with Weichert Realty, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie announced.

Pleading guilty today before U.S. District Judge Harold A. Ackerman were Ronald Hyppolite, 25, and Juno Geneus, 25, both of Irvington, and both permanent U.S. residents and Haitian nationals.

Pleading guilty on Wednesday before Judge Ackerman were Marie Louissaint, 27, of Irvington, New Jersey, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Haiti; Michelet Alexis, 33, born in Haiti, and residing in Brooklyn, New York, and Allen Cadestin, 23, of Irvington and Allentown, Pa.

Each pleaded guilty to an Information charging conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

Weichert Financial employs approximately 600 employees, and is licensed to do business in more than 40 states. Weichert Financial is in the mortgage brokerage business, and is affiliated with Weichert Realty, the nationwide real estate broker, which is also a New Jersey corporation.

The stolen credit reports were sold to others for cash, given away to others, or used by the conspirators to open fraudulent credit accounts to purchase merchandise, said Robert Kirsch, the Assistant U.S. Attorney who handled the case. In five separate plea hearings this week in federal court, the defendants admitted they obtained between $120,000 and $200,000 of merchandise through the fraud scheme. All five pleaded guilty before Judge Ackerman.

The criminal Informations charged that the thousands of identity thefts took place between November 2002 and April 2003, when the defendants were arrested by agents of the FBI, Secret Service, and U.S. Postal Inspection Service. .

Louissaint was employed as an administrative assistant involved with loan processing at Weichert Financial from May 2001 to May 2003, when she was arrested by federal law enforcement agents. As part of her responsibilities at Weichert Financial, Louissaint had access to personal and confidential credit reports and information regarding the company's customers. In a hearing before Judge Ackerman on Wednesday, Louissaint admitted she stole hard copies of Weichert's customer credit reports and gave them to her then live-in boyfriend and co-conspirator, Hyppolite who according to Kirsch, was the scheme's ringleader. Louissaint, also originally from Haiti, is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

On Friday, at his plea hearing, Hyppolite admitted that he asked Louissaint to steal the credit reports, and that he then used them to open fraudulent credit accounts and ordered thousands of dollars of electronics equipment. Also on Friday, Geneus told Ackerman that, in 2002, he moved in with his friend Hyppolite and Louissaint in an apartment they shared in Irvington.

Geneus stated that Cadestin, another friend of Hyppolite's who also lived in Irvington, was able to gain access to Weichert's internal computer system through coded information provided on the hard copies stolen by Louisssaint. The hacking allowed the defendants to access thousands of Weichert customers personal and credit information. According to the Informations, the schemers obtained approximately 3,774 Weichert customers confidential credit reports.

Alexis, Hyppolite's cousin who lived in Brooklyn, admitted earlier this week that on dozens of occasions he printed out confidential credit report profiles of Weichert customers which he in turn gave to Hyppolite. Alexis also admitted that he used a stolen Weichert customer's identity to purchase, from the Internet, computer merchandise which he had delivered to Brooklyn.

The Informations charged that Hyppolite, Geneus and Cadestin used the customers' confidential information contained on the stolen credit report profiles to obtain New Jersey drivers' licenses in their victims' names which they then used to open fraudulent credit accounts to make purchases, via the Internet. Cadestin, in his plea hearing earlier this week, admitted that he and his co-defendants bought merchandise, such as computers, Palm Pilots, camcorders and other electronics through the use of the stolen identities. Geneus, on Friday, told Ackerman that he and the others sold some of the merchandise for cash, gave some merchandise away to others, and kept and used some of it themselves.

In an attempt to conceal detection by the authorities, the defendants generally had the merchandise delivered to various third-party addresses in Irvington, Union, Hillside, East Orange - all in New Jersey - as well as locations Brooklyn and Allentown, Pa., Kirsch said.

The five individuals were arrested by Special Agents of the FBI, Postal Inspection Service and Secret Service, in a joint investigation, after simultaneous search warrants were executed at a series of locations in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

Under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, Judge Ackerman will determine each defendant's actual sentence based upon a formula that takes into account the severity and characteristics of the offense, and the defendant's criminal history, if any. Parole has been abolished in the federal system. Louissaint was released, pending sentencing, on a $50,000 bond, while her co-defendants Hypollite, Geneus, Cadestin and Alexis were released on individual $100,000 bonds. Judge Ackerman has set sentencing for each on January 19.

U.S. Attorney Christie credited this successful joint investigation to Special Agents of the FBI, under the direction of Joseph Billy, Jr., Special Agent In Charge; Special Agents of the Secret Service, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Jan H. Gilhooly in Morristown; and Postal Inspectors from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, under the direction Martin D. Phanco, Postal Inspector In Charge.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kirsch, of the Securities and Health Care Fraud Unit, in Newark.

-end-

Defense Counsel:

Angelo Servidio, Esq., of Nutley, counsel for Louissaint

John McGovern, Esq., of South Orange, counsel for Hyppolite

Richard Verde, Esq., of West Caldwell, counsel for Geneus

Isabel McGinty, Esq., of Hightstown, counsel for Alexis

Joseph Rubino, Esq., of Millburn, counsel for Cadestin