Hillsborough Man Gets 6 Years For Scamming Elderly Out Of $2M

HILLSBOROUGH, NJ — A Hillsborough man was sentenced Friday to 78 months in prison for engaging in a $2 million Ponzi scheme targeting elderly investors, Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig announced.

Daniel Rivera, 51, of Hillsborough, a former financial advisor, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Anne E. Thompson to a superseding information charging him with one count of wire fraud and one count of subscribing to a false tax return.

From 2008 through 2017, Rivera was able to get, mainly elderly, investors to invest their money in a company called Robbins Lane Properties Inc., according to documents filed in this case and statements made in court.

Rivera claimed the company was staffed by experienced real estate professionals who would invest the elderly investor's funds in real estate ventures and would receive a guaranteed monthly income, according to the indictment.

In reality, Robbins Lane had no employees, no real estate portfolio, and the monies used to pay investors as a purported return on their investments was from funds he received from other investors, according to the indictment.

Rivera instead used the money he got from investors to pay his personal and unrelated business expenses, including paying his child's college tuition and sorority fees, according to the indictment.

During the course of the fraudulent scheme, on March 5, 2014, Rivera filed with the IRS a federal income tax return that underreported his taxable income by $33,276, according to authorities.

In addition to the prison term, Rivera was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution of $1.47 million to his victims and $284,863 to the IRS.

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