Las Vegas man pleads guilty in lucrative telemarketing scam

NEW YORK — A Las Vegas man pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal charge alleging he deceived people into donating tens of millions of dollars to what they thought were charities but were actually political groups or his own businesses.

Richard Zeitlin, 54, entered a plea to conspiracy to commit fraud in federal court in Manhattan, where sentencing was set for Dec. 10. A plea agreement he signed with prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of 10 to 13 years.

He also agreed to forfeit $8.9 million, representing proceeds traceable to the crime, in addition to any fine, restitution or other penalty the judge might impose at sentencing. His attorney declined to comment.

Zeitlin committed the fraud from 2017 through 2020 by using “call centers” he had operated since at least 1994 to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for charities and political action committees, an indictment said.

Since 2017, he has defrauded numerous donors through the call centers by providing them with false and misleading information about how their money would be spent and the nature of the organizations that would receive their money, the indictment said.

Although donors were told they were helping veterans, police officers and breast cancer patients, as much as 90 percent of the money raised went to Zeitlin’s businesses, according to court documents.

According to the report, beginning in 2017, Zeitlin encouraged a number of potential clients to run political action committees instead of charities because they could dodge rules and requirements specific to charities.

Zeitlin instructed his staff to modify their phone canvassing scripts to convince people they were donating to charities rather than political causes, because that approach resulted in more money, the indictment alleges.

For example, it said that a call center employee would tell someone that a donation “helps disabled and incapacitated veterans by working to obtain the medical needs” that they could not get from the Veterans Administration.

At times, the indictment says, Zeitlin also defrauded the political action committees by funneling money to his own companies instead of to the causes the call center employees had described.

“Zeitlin’s fraudulent actions not only undermined the trust of donors, but also abused their goodwill for personal gain,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a press release.