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A Florida man was sentenced to 21 months in prison Jan. 22 in a 433,000 fraud scheme he perpetrated against small business owners and others seeking lines of credit all across the country. Michael Pitamber Ramdat, 30, of Palm Bay, who pleaded guilty on June 11, 2014, was also sentenced to a three year period of supervised release and restitution.
According to the plea agreement, Ramdat and his partner, Leigh Farrington Fiske, operated a business referred to as “Corporate Funding Solutions.” The business aimed to obtain credit lines for customers in exchange for a fee. Ramdat’s role was to vouch for the legitimacy of the business with victims recruited by Fiske, and to provide “customer service” by giving excuses to the victims, a FBI press release said.
In reality, neither Fiske nor Ramdat ever intended to provide any services to their customers. Instead, they accepted approximately $433,000 from approximately 30 victims and never helped any of these victims obtain credit. Ramdat admitted that he kept over $200,000 of these payments for himself. The amounts obtained through the fraudulent scheme were funneled through banks that received Troubled Asset Relief Program funding, the press release said.
Ramdat was indicted by a federal grand jury on Nov. 21, 2013, on five counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy. Fiske was previously sentenced to a prison term of 37 months.
