Miami, Florida – A federal district judge has sentenced the last of four defendants involved in a mail and wire fraud scheme aimed at defrauding investors.
Miami-Dade County resident Jason Ganton, 50, was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison. In December 2021, co-defendant, Mason Newman, 52, was sentenced to 38 months in prison; co-defendant, James Cleary, 50, was sentenced to 33 months in prison; and co-defendant, Kevin Cardenas, 34, was sentenced to 24 months.
NIT Enterprises was a Palm Beach Gardens company that falsely marketed itself as being on the cusp of developing and producing radiation protective materials using an innovative technology. Ganton, Newman, Cleary and Cardenas who were not licensed securities sales agents, admitted to lying to investors by telling them that NIT was on the verge of making an initial public offering of stock. This created a false expectation that investors would double or triple their investments in a short amount of time. In fact, there was no IPO on the horizon for NIT. Ganton, Newman, Cleary and Cardenas admitted that they reached most of their victims through cold calls and that they personally profited from the investor funds.
Juan Antonio Gonzalez, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, George L. Piro, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Miami, and Russell C. Weigel, III of the Office of Financial Regulation, announced the sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon.
FBI Miami and the Office of Financial Regulation investigated this case. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lothrop Morris. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daren Grove is handling asset forfeiture.
Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or at http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov, under case number 20-cr-80095.
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