By Alex Gault | Watertown Daily Times, N.Y. (TNS)
Watertown, N.Y. — President Joseph R. Biden on Thursday commuted the sentence for convicted fraudster and former Jreck Subs principal Christopher M. Swartz.
In 2017, Swartz, of Watertown, was convicted of defrauding over 150 people out of about $21 million, and evading over $4 million in taxes.
According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice released after his sentencing, Swartz had taken money from people interested in investing in the sandwich shop chain and other hospitality companies he owned, providing fraudulent promissory notes and offers of ownership in his companies.
When people attempted to get their money back, he made false assurances and partial payments, ultimately concealing his assets in a web of shell companies and secondary accounts to hide the money from those he owed money to. He did this between 2005 and 2015.
He pleaded guilty in 2016 to wire fraud and tax evasion counts.
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He also sold worthless shell company stocks to about 70 people in the U.K., defrauding them of about $1.1 million.
“Christopher Swartz stole millions of dollars from investors and lenders and cheated the public treasury out of millions of dollars of taxes,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Jaquith at the time of his sentencing. “His elaborate scheme to defraud relied on a mind-boggling web of accounts and enterprises and concealment of his assets and diversions of funds.”
He was sentenced to 150 months in federal prison for the fraud and tax evasion, and was serving his time in the Otisville prison in Orange County. But in December of 2022, Swartz was relocated from the prison to a halfway house in Pittsburgh, meant to aid a transition out of the corrections system. He served just over 5 years in prison of his original 12 1/2 -year sentence.
According to the federal prisoner lookup database, Swartz was meant to be released from that program on Jan. 12, 2027 — his Thursday commutation…
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