Norman Newman, 73, of Croton on Hudson, pled guilty on April 23 to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Newman admitted to knowingly providing lists of potential victims to fraudulent mass-mailing schemes that tricked consumers into paying fees for falsely promised cash prizes and purportedly personalized “psychic” services.
Newman was indicted on in March of 2020 for providing list brokerage services for more than 11 years to scammers running fraud schemes. Newman pled guilty to furnishing consumers’ names and addresses to fraudster clients, knowing that the clients were mailing hundreds of thousands of deceptive prize notifications that misled victims into believing that they would receive a cash prize or personalized services upon payment of a fee. Many of the victims were elderly and vulnerable.
“Fraud schemes are intolerable, especially those that harm our nation’s seniors,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Ethan Davis of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division. “As Attorney General Barr made clear earlier this month when he announced record results in the 2020 Elder Fraud Sweep, the Department of Justice is committed to protecting seniors, including by pursuing and prosecuting those who perpetrate mass mailing fraud.”
According to the indictment, Newman worked in the offices of a list-brokerage company from 2005 until September 2016. Newman worked as a list broker and senior vice president at Macromark Inc., a Connecticut direct mail services firm. Macromark pleaded guilty to facilitating elder fraud schemes in September 2020. The conspiracy resulted in at least $9.5 million in losses to consumers.
In pleading guilty, Newman admitted to assisting clients in obtaining victim lists for deceptive mailing campaigns. These fraudulent mass mailer clients sent out deceptive letters that appeared to be personalized, when, in actuality, the same letters were sent to thousands of consumers on the mailing lists that Newman provided. Each letter was intended to mislead the consumer into believing that he or she would receive a large amount of money, a valuable prize, or personalized psychic services upon payment of a fee to the mass mailers, who often operated under false names. Fraudsters paid commissions to Newman’s employer, Macromark, for brokering the sale of lists of potential victims. Newman then received a percentage of the commissions. Newman knew the content and fraudulent character of the mass-mailings, that they were intended to defraud thousands of consumers, and that some of the consumers were vulnerable to the scams.
While brokering lists, Newman also assisted fraudulent mass mailing clients by engaging the services of data brokerage companies that operated cooperative databases, or “co-ops,” which stored large volumes of demographic and transactional data on American consumers. During the conspiracy, Newman and others routinely provided samples of clearly fraudulent letters to employees of data brokerage companies, who then provided data to fraudulent mass mailer clients.
“While working for a large data firm, the defendant purposefully supplied the names and addresses of vulnerable Americans to known fraudulent clients targeting consumers via mass-mailings. He knew each name he provided would result in another fraudulent mailing being delivered to the consumers’ mailbox,” said Inspector in Charge Delany De León-Colón of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Criminal Investigations Group.
If you believe you are a victim in this case and would like to opt-in to receive notifications or if you have any questions about your rights, please contact a Victim Witness Coordinator at (203) 821-3757 / (203)-985-9129 or through our website (https://www.justice.gov/civil/case/united-states-v-norman-newman).
He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 14 and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. We hope that he is sentenced to the MAX.
If you or someone you know is age 60 or older and has been a victim of financial fraud, help is standing by at the National Elder Fraud Hotline: 1-833-FRAUD-11 (1-833-372-8311
