One Sorry Ferrari
Online gaming CEO hustles car broker and scams investors with an IPO that never happened
Sandy John Masselli leased a Ferrari, a Mercedes and several other luxury cars from a New Jersey auto broker, and he got the broker to pay for them.
Masselli, CEO of Carlyle Entertainment, deftly flipped the sales script on the broker, claiming his online gaming company was about to do an initial public stock offering.
He offered the broker a chance to get in at the pre-IPO price. The broker wired $100,000 to Masselli’s bank account for 400,000 shares of Carlyle Entertainment stock, which Masselli said would be held in a trust until the IPO launched, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint.
Masselli then used the broker’s money to lease several vehicles. But the IPO never happened.
Last week, Masselli, 63, of Columbia, S.C., received a six year prison sentence for securities fraud, bank fraud and wire fraud. He was ordered to pay restitution of $3.2 million, forfeit $1 million and serve three years of supervised release.
He is either one of the greatest negotiators to ever shop for luxury automobiles, or it’s true what they say about sales people – especially car sales people – that they are the easiest folks to scam.
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