< Back to Previous Page Two Telemarketers Sentenced In Connection With Telemarketing Services Company R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Henry Gutierrez, Postal Inspector in Charge, United States Postal Inspection Service, announced that two (2) boiler room telemarketers were sentenced today in connection with their participation in fraudulent business opportunity sales at a Miami firm called Pantheon Holdings, a/k/a Internet Machine Company (“Pantheon”). United States District Court Judge Jose E. Martinez sentenced Mark Pelle to 108 months' imprisonment, three (3) years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay $ 2,812,652 in restitution. United States District Court Judge Joan A. Lenard sentenced Martin Raff to 12 months' imprisonment, two (2) years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay $461,060 in restitution. According to charging documents, Pantheon promoted the business opportunities to consumers across the country through television commercials, the Internet and other media, misrepresenting the profits that could be earned by purchasing a Pantheon distributorship, and urging consumers to call a telephone number that appeared in the advertisements. Potential purchasers were told that for a purchase price of approximately $18,000, Pantheon would, among other things: perform all the legwork of the business; find appropriate, viable, and high-traffic locations to place the kiosks; relocate any kiosk that underperformed; place national advertisements on the kiosk; and only sell distributorships in a limited geographic area. Pantheon salespeople falsely represented to potential purchasers that they would earn their investment back in nine months to a year. Defendant Mark Pelle was convicted by a jury on September 18, 2006, of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and substantive mail and wire fraud charges. Pelle was a Pantheon “closer.” Closers made several misrepresentations about the profit that would be generated by the business, territorial limitations, the viability of locations, and ongoing customer support and technical assistance that Pantheon would be providing. Defendant Martin Raff was a Pantheon salesman known as a “Back-from-the-Dead,” or “BFD” salesman. If a closer was unsuccessful in closing a deal, Raff called the potential purchaser back within a few days or weeks in an attempt to resurrect the deal. Raff also closed sales directly.The sentencings of Pelle and Raff brings to nine (9) the number of individuals sentenced in connection with the Pantheon scheme. Pelle, Raff, and their co-conspirators fraudulently induced approximately 738 consumers to invest a total of more than $18 million in Pantheon. Mr. Acosta commended the investigative efforts of the Postal Inspection Service. This is one of a series of cases in which defendants have been convicted of similar schemes involving the sale of various fraudulent business opportunities involving Internet terminals, movie rental terminals, "cashless ATM machines" (which provide a receipt which consumers convert to cash at the register of the store where the machine was located), and other worthless "opportunities." The Pantheon cases are being prosecuted by Jill Furman and Richard Goldberg, Trial Attorneys, United States Department of Justice, Office of Consumer Litigation.