A Connecticut high-roller's game of deceit ended with a hard fall. Ariel Legassa, the former NESN executive who finagled more than half a million dollars through a fake invoicing scheme, was handed a 42-month prison stint yesterday. Legassa, 52, faced justice in a Boston federal court where U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani also served him three years of supervised release and ordered him to cough up $580,000 in restitution and forfeiture, along with a $1,000 special assessment, as the Justice Department announced.
The man's ploy, which started in December 2020 and continued until January 2022, included negotiating a legit contract for NESN with a New York web development firm while concurrently setting up a doppelganger company to pocket the illicit funds. "This was brazen fraud driven by defendant’s greed," Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy pointed out. Legassa's luxury spree funded by his former employer included splurges on a private plane and a trio of high-end cars: a Tesla, a BMW, and a Land Rover.
His elaborate ruse saw illicit transfers totaling over $500,000, whereby NESN was duped to funnel cash into the mock company's accounts. Legassa lined his pockets further, hiding the stolen wealth in various under-the-radar accounts. Conviction came in November 2023 after a five-day trial found him guilty on seven counts of mail fraud and three counts of unlawful monetary transactions.
Jodi Cohen, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division, didn't mince words about the ill-gotten gains. "Supplementing your paycheck by scamming your employer is a really bad career move," she declared, having seen her fair share of white-collar crimes. Today's sentencing confirms the offender will face his comeuppance, as justice demands that financial fraudsters like Legassa be held accountable for their actions. The sum of Legassa's excesses, laid to bare, sends a clear message: crime pays with time.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Benjamin A. Saltzman and Mackenzie A. Queenin of the Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit, along with Carol E. Head of the Asset Forfeiture Unit, brought the case to a close, ensuring that this saga of deceit and theft concluded with a fitting testament to the law's reach and firmness against those tempted by the lure of easy money at the expense of trust and integrity.
