Ann Bortner was considering retirement. She was trying to take advantage of $180,000 she invested in a Collegeville accountant, a pillar of the Montgomery County community that everyone seems to know and trust.
Boatner, 65, who lives in South Jersey and works with people with traumatic brain injuries, gave the money to Joseph Pezzano after his mother died about five years ago. Her twin sister did the same.
“It’s a lot of money for us,” Bortner said. “That’s what our parents left us.”
Pezzano passed away on Christmas Day last year at the age of 73.
Almost five months later, no one has been able to tell Ms. Boatner where her money is. So does her sister Karen, who works at Rite Aid. And her brother Leonard, a retired PECO employee, had put his pension into Pezzano’s investment plan.
Dozens of investors have found themselves in the same situation and are seeking to recover millions of dollars that Pezzano controlled, according to recent court filings and interviews with customers, lawyers and law enforcement officials. . Current estimates are that the total amount missing is between $10 million and $30 million.
The FBI is currently conducting interviews and issuing subpoenas, the Inquirer reported.
Some investors have filed lawsuits in court for more than $1 million each, wondering if they were caught up in a long-running pyramid scheme.
Some are holding out hope that Mr. Pezzano, a South Philadelphia native described by one client as “a truly wonderful person,” simply failed to plan for his finances after his death. Some police officers went to Pezzano to prepare taxes.
Either way, Bortner is beginning to wonder if retirement is still an option for him.
“I don’t know what else to do,” she said. “I can’t afford a lawyer because lawyers are paid.”
no answer to client
Within days of Pezzano’s death, alarm bells began ringing. His accounting firm, Bond Pezzano & Etze, sent an email to clients in mid-January saying: no In partnership with Pezzano’s investment arm, JPA R/E Associates.”
This further scared investors. The financial statements received from JPA had the same address and phone number as the accounting firm.
Two weeks later, Bond Pezzano & Etze’s office manager sent a follow-up email saying the firm was “unable to answer any questions” about the Pezzano investment. A third email in February sent questions to an attorney representing Pezzano’s estate.
His attorney, Thomas Bolden, did not respond to a request for comment from the Inquirer. So did an agent at Bond Pezzano & Etze, where Pezzano’s daughter is a partner.
“We’re in the dark,” said Ron Adkins, 79, a semi-retired former owner of a day care business. “No one in his office would acknowledge anything.”
Adkins said he has not been able to locate the approximately $850,000 he and his wife invested in Pezzano. The couple believed their money was going to an IRA.
“He was a very nice guy. You definitely loved him,” Adkins said of Pezzano. “When you walk into his office, he makes you feel like you’re the most important person in the world.”
Mr Adkins said he now has serious concerns about whether he will be able to recover his money.
“I wonder how many people don’t even know he passed away and think their money is okay and safe,” he said.
FBI investigation intensifies
Collegeville Police Chief Barton Butcher said his department began interviewing investors soon after Pezzano’s death, and each report of missing funds ranged from about $50,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“There may be more that I don’t know about,” Butcher said of his customers.
Butcher’s investigators turned the case over to the FBI. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment last week.
Lawyers representing investors filed suit in Montgomery County Orphans Court.
Adam Sager, who represents the two investors, questioned in court how Mr. Pezzano was able to purchase at least 10 properties in Ocean City, New Jersey. The lawyer said his client may be the victim of a Ponzi scheme involving rental properties.
“The Bernie Madoff story comes to mind,” Sager said.
Kathy McKeever worked closely with Pezzano for about 25 years, retiring just weeks before his death. She and her husband, James, had invested about $150,000.
“It’s hard to imagine that a man I worked with for this long would do something like this,” McKeever said of possible fraud. “It’s really puzzling. But the longer everything stays quiet, the more worried I become.”
” read more: Paula & Joe Pezzano: From Half a Century to Half a Century of Pizza
McKeever said some Exelon employees diverted their pensions to Pezzano’s investment business and collected monthly expenses. They spread the word to their spouses and other employees, and they invested as well.
“There was a lot of money coming in all at once,” said McKeever, who ran customer service and marketing at Pezzano.
Mr. McKeever said Mr. Pezzano did not live a luxurious life. I rarely took vacations. I worked on the weekends. He and his wife Paula lived on a ranch at the end of his cul-de-sac that he purchased in 1979 for $63,900.
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said.
James McKeever said he believes there is an innocent explanation. It’s as simple as he doesn’t have a “succession plan” in case Pezzano dies. It’s a serious mistake, but it’s not a crime.
“It’s a small town. People knew him and he knew people,” James McGeever said. “People like that don’t do that.”
But as winter turned to spring, the number of people who shared that opinion began to dwindle.
“I’m not saying this is a pyramid scheme,” Bortner said. “But it’s a pyramid scheme.
Her sister Karen Siendelman doesn’t know what to think. She also wanted to put the $70,000 she invested in Pezzano into her retirement savings.
“There are a lot of people who have a lot of money,” she said. “Everyone is out of business because he passed away. It’s shaking. Everything is in limbo.”
Sager said he is awaiting the results of a forensic examination of one of Pezzano’s computers. He said there were rumors that investors were told they were holding mortgages for other investors. If it were just a bookkeeping problem, he thinks it would have been solved by now.
“The question is, can they find the money to distribute to investors?” Sager asked. “What happened to those funds?”
