A Union City man who posed as a financial professional and stole about $1.1 million from investors — including elderly victims who trusted him with investment money and even mortgage payments — was sentenced on Thursday, November 5, to 63 months in federal prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey announced. Antonio Petrosino, also known as Anthony Petrosino, 61, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Stanley R. Chesler in federal court in Newark, U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer said.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, District of New Jersey, via NJToday
Petrosino had pleaded guilty on March 25, 2026, before Judge Chesler to one count of wire fraud, prosecutors said. The scheme ran for nearly nine years, from January 2016 through November 2024, and targeted elderly and other victims who believed their money was being invested on their behalf or otherwise used for their benefit.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
How the scheme worked
According to prosecutors, Petrosino falsely represented himself as a financial services professional and persuaded victims to hand over investment funds, mortgage payments and other money. Instead of investing it, he kept the money for himself. To keep the scheme alive, he gave victims false assurances when they asked about their funds — and gave one elderly victim forged investment statements showing hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting in accounts in her name, prosecutors said, money that was not there.
The Justice Department said Petrosino misappropriated the funds for personal expenses, including gambling and rent. In total, prosecutors say, he stole approximately $1.1 million from the victims over the life of the scheme.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Chesler sentenced Petrosino to two years of supervised release and ordered forfeiture and restitution to the victims totalling $1,130,406.63, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. The wire fraud count to which he pleaded guilty had carried a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offence, whichever was greatest, according to the Justice Department's account of the guilty plea.
The victims were not speculators chasing quick profits — prosecutors describe elderly savers and people who handed over mortgage payments to a man presenting himself as a professional. The forged statements meant families believed for years that money was safely invested when it was already gone, a pattern federal investigators say is the hallmark of elder investment fraud.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI, the Federal Reserve Board's Office of Inspector General and the Wyckoff Police Department in Bergen County, prosecutors said — a combination that reflects how the case touched both federal financial oversight and a local New Jersey community. U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer announced the sentence; his office prosecuted the case in the District of New Jersey.
Petrosino's sentencing is the latest in a series of New Jersey elder investment-fraud cases. In August 2025, Vincent Dispoto Jr. was sentenced in Trenton to 151 months in prison for a decades-long scheme that took more than $6 million from more than 60 victims, many of them elderly, the Justice Department said. Federal officials say such cases share the same warning signs Petrosino's victims described: a trusted 'professional,' paperwork that looks official, and reassurances whenever questions are asked.
What happens next: Petrosino will serve his 63-month federal sentence, followed by two years of supervised release, and the $1,130,406.63 restitution and forfeiture judgment stands as the mechanism for returning money to victims, though in fraud cases of this kind recovery is often partial and slow. For readers in New Jersey's large Punjabi and South Asian communities — where elders frequently rely on a single trusted adviser for savings, gold and property money — investigators' advice in these cases is consistent: verify any investment adviser's registration independently, insist on statements directly from the institution holding the money, and treat pressure or secrecy about withdrawals as a red flag.