Accused denies role in time-share scam
One of five defendants in an alleged multimillion-dollar time-share scam took the stand Thursday and denied any involvement in the company's purported practice of ripping off clients who thought they were paying to get out of mortgage commitments.
One of five defendants in an alleged multimillion-dollar time-share scam took the stand Thursday and denied any involvement in the company's purported practice of ripping off clients who thought they were paying to get out of mortgage commitments.
Ian Resnick, 38, told the court that he had turned his life around when he started working at Vacation Ownership Group - leaving behind a past of cocaine addiction and a federal prison term served for bank robbery - to help people buried in time-share debt.
"I'd been through the system once," Resnick said. "I just found out I was going to be a father, and I really believed what we were doing and the concept was well meaning and needed."
Resnick is charged along with company owners Adam and Ashley Lacerda, and employees Joseph Diventi and Genevieve Manzoni.
Federal prosecutors say the five defendants tricked 225 time-share owners, many of them elderly, into believing that the Egg Harbor Township-based company, now known as VO Financial Corp., would help them get out of their time-share mortgages in 2009, 2010, and 2011.
The victims lost $2.4 million, the federal government said, because they paid Vacation Ownership Group to get them out of their time-share payments, but the packages were never canceled and the company kept the money.
Most of the victims have since received refunds.
All five defendants are being tried together in Judge Noel L. Hillman's courtroom in Camden on conspiracy to defraud and other charges, though they are represented by different attorneys.
In opening arguments late last month, a lawyer for Adam Lacerda said his client was disenchanted by the high-pressure tactics of time-share selling and started his company to help owners who felt cheated.
The fraud alleged against the five, defense lawyers argued, was perpetrated by "rogue independent contractors" turned government witnesses who have pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in exchange for reduced sentences.
Earlier, the government presented a long paper trail of bank statements, e-mails, and contracts signed by people contacted by Vacation Ownership Group as well as testimony from former employees and victims taken in by the alleged scam.
On Wednesday, Resnick, dressed in a gray suit and yellow tie and speaking calmly, said that after serving five years in prison on the robbery conviction, employment options were scarce but that he found a job at Vacation Ownership Group, founded by Lacerda, a former colleague of his at Wyndham Property Resorts in Atlantic City.
Resnick denied knowledge of e-mails sent from his account which connected him to one of the victims. He described his role in the process as preliminary, claiming he had no knowledge of the end steps taken to cancel time-shares.
He also denied ever using a call script found on his desk that outlined dishonest practices for getting customers to buy into the scheme.
On cross-examination, Resnick admitted that as a salesman at Wyndham he would lie to sell time-shares but said he was not lying on the stand. He faces up to 20 years if convicted.
Resnick also faces charges of collecting unemployment while still employed by the group.
The trial is to continue Friday with testimony from Adam Lacerda.
