TOP BUSINESS/TECHNOLOGY
Swindler's next stop is Brooklyn court
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
By KEVIN G. DeMARRAIS
STAFF WRITER
Brooklyn authorities will probably be the next to face off with Joseph Greenblatt in court after the admitted swindler's scheduled hearing in Hackensack was postponed Monday.
Greenblatt, 43, was scheduled Monday to accept or reject a plea bargain offered by Bergen County prosecutors that would have sent him to prison for seven years in exchange for a guilty plea. He is accused of bouncing nearly $1.9 million in checks to clients of his Paramus-based real estate investment company, Maywood Capital Corp.
At the request of both sides, the hearing in state Superior Court in Hackensack was tentatively postponed until April 25, but will likely not happen until May.
That means Greenblatt's next appearance will likely be April 26 in Supreme Court in Brooklyn, where in 1997 he pleaded guilty to 94 counts of swindling investors out of $15 million through another real estate investment company he ran, Brooklyn-based Executive Funding Corp.
Despite the plea, Greenblatt has remained free on bail for eight years and has never been officially sentenced. The 1997 deal calls for him to receive five years probation if he made $5 million in restitution payments by March 30, plus an additional $500,000 over the next five years.
But the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office said recently that Greenblatt had paid back only $3.3 million at the deadline, and New Jersey securities regulators have questioned the source of the money, claiming it was defrauded from Maywood Capital investors.
In a sworn statement that is part of a separate civil fraud and racketeering suit, a former Greenblatt accountant alleges that $1.8 million of the restitution came from Maywood Capital bank accounts.
"If it is proven to us that the restitution we're getting is from proceeds of theft in New Jersey, that's not good," said a Brooklyn official familiar with the case. "The New Jersey case is problematic for Mr. Greenblatt."
Greenblatt was arrested in New Jersey in March 2004, and each month since December, he has been able to delay responding to a plea offer from Bergen County prosecutors. Judge Donald R. Venezia said in March that Monday was Greenblatt's "last opportunity" to plead the case, but the postponement extends the deadline again.
Even though the hearing is tentatively set for April 25, an early May date is more likely, Assistant Prosecutor David Yucht said
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