CONTACT: Barbara Burns
PHONE: (716) 843-5817
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ROCHESTER, N.Y. – U.S. Attorney Trini E. Ross announced today that Thomas Mann, 74, of Addison, NY, who was convicted of wire fraud, was sentenced to serve 24 months in prison by Chief U.S. District Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford. Mann was also ordered to pay restitution totaling $273,571.66.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John J. Field, who handled the case, stated that the Transport Investment Club (TIC), which had approximately 25 investing members, was formed in 1958, in the small community of Wellsboro, PA. Mann, a well-known high school math teacher and long-time friend of most of the TIC members, was elected treasurer of TIC in 1994. Mann’s duties included collecting and disbursing funds, buying, and selling stocks as directed by TIC and its members, maintaining a set of books covering operations and assets, and preparing a monthly statement documenting the club’s liquidating value, which was the total value of the club’s stock holdings. Mann had sole control over the TIC bank account at Citizens and Northern Bank (C&N Bank) and the TIC investment accounts at brokerage firms. Funds collected at TIC monthly meetings were supposed to be used to purchase stocks in the TIC investment accounts as directed by the club members. Over the years, Mann regularly embezzled TIC’s funds for his personal use rather than investing the funds. By February 2020, TIC’s investments should have been worth approximately $290,614.05. In actuality, Mann had embezzled all but $707.74 of TIC’s stock holdings. For more than a decade, Mann routinely provided TIC members with fraudulent liquidation statements, which misrepresented the actual values of TIC’s purported investments. As one of the victims stated: “Mann’s soulless duplicity and clear cunning fooled us all.”
The sentencing is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Special Agent-in-Charge Stephen Belongia.
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