N.J. Ponzi schemer who ‘trampled’ on clients’ trust will spend 12 years in prison

The shadow chief executive officer of a Hudson County-based real estate investment firm who admitted earlier this year that he orchestrated a $658 million Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 2,000 investors was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.

In February, Thomas Nicholas Salzano, 66, of Secaucus, said in court that he made misrepresentations to investors while working behind the scenes at National Realty Investment Advisors and used millions of dollars of investor money on personal expenses for himself and family and friends, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office District of New Jersey.

Salzano led a nationwide marketing campaign at the firm from 2018 to 2022 in order to collect money from investors, the office said. The campaign included thousands of emails sent to prospective investors as well as advertisements on billboards, TV and radio.

He would trick investors into thinking that the firm was turning significant profits, when it was really making little to no profits and was operating as a Ponzi scheme, investigators said. Returns were paid to investors with money from new investors and the leaders of the scheme spent millions of dollars on personal expenses including upscale dinners, lavish birthday parties and payments to family members and friends.

The firm also avoided paying millions of dollars in taxes to the government by opening bank accounts in the names of phony businesses and falsifying documents, authorities said.

Salzano was originally charged in 2022 along with Rey E. Grabato II, who was listed as the CEO of the company to hide Salzano's history of fraud from potential investors, the office said.

The firm's former head of sales, Arthur S. Scuttaro, of Nutley was also charged at the time and has since pleaded guilty in the case. The U.S. Attorney's Office has not provided an update on Grabato's criminal case.

Salzano pleaded guilty to securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

"Salzano trampled on the trust that his clients placed in him to invest their money prudently but instead he stole their investments for his own self-enrichment through his atrocious scheme which resulted in the theft of over $650 million," said Harry Chavis, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, Boston Field Office.

"Today's sentencing of Salzano should send a message to others who choose to prey on innocent victims through similar investment fraud schemes that IRS – Criminal Investigation and our law enforcement partners are committed to pursuing justice for all Americans that are victimized by these schemes."

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