Manhasset 2019_07_05

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Serving Manhasset, Munsey Park, North Hills, Plandome Heights, Plandome Manor, Plandome and Flower Hill

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Friday, July 5, 2019

Vol. 7, No. 27

GUIDE TO SUMMER

CIVIC LEADER BOURGUET DIES

SUOZZI, RICE BACK IMMIGRATION BILL

PAGES 29-60

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Manhasset man gained $19M in scheme: feds

T R U M P TA L K

Arrested Friday with charges of defrauding at least six investors BY T E R I W EST A Manhasset man was arrested Friday and charged in federal court with stealing more than $19 million in a Ponzi scheme that prosecutors say defrauded investors and funded luxurious amenities including a vacation rental in the Hamptons. Paul A. Rinfret, 70, created a company called Plandome Partners LP and gained more than $19 million in investments through it, investments he claimed would be traded on the stock market but most of which he instead pocketed, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which is prosecuting the case. The former brokerage firm and investment bank employee faces Department of Justice wire fraud charges and securities fraud charges, which each have 20-year maximum prison sentences. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a separate civil lawsuit

on the same day. “As alleged, Paul Rinfret willfully and continually defrauded his investors, the very people he was tasked with serving, in a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that served to enrich only him,” said Angel M. Melendez, special agent-in-charge of the New York field office of Homeland Security investigations. The scheme took place from at least May 2016 to this June, according to the Homeland Security investigations complaint. The SEC complaint says it began in late 2013. Plandome Partners investors were led to believe that all of their funds would be for trading futures contracts on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, the Homeland Security investigations complaint said. Only a small amount of that money was traded, according to the complaint. Among Rinfret’s suspected Continued on Page 87

PHOTO COURTESY OF STEVEN BLANK

Anthony Scaramucci, Schreiber graduate and 11-day White House director of communications, discusses President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign at a Chamber of Commerce event in Manhasset. See story on page 2.

F. Hill resident submits anti-cell nodes memo BY J ES S I C A PA R K S

day’s Board of Trustees meeting. Michael and Lynn KoufaA Flower Hill resident sub- kis recently paid $30,000 for mitted a memorandum oppos- the relocation of a PSEG utiling one of the 18 cell nodes ity pole from their property to proposed in the village at Mon- improve the aesthetics. Shortly

after, village applications for cell nodes were submitted that proposed constructing a pole in the newly vacant spot, according to attorney Andrew Campanelli of Merrick. Continued on Page 74

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