Owner of New Jersey Scrap Metal Firm Sentenced to Prison

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The minority owner of a New Jersey-based scrap metal recycling company has been sentenced to prison by the U.S. Department of Justice for finding guilty of defrauding customers. Craig Cinelli of Cinelli Iron & Metal Co. (CIMCO) was sentenced to 33 months in prison. In addition to that, he was also sentenced to three years of supervised release.

The owners of the company- Craig Cinelli and his brother Joseph Cinelli were charged with operating a 17-year conspiracy that defrauded customers out of millions of dollars. Both were arrested in August 2017. The owners were charged by indictment with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

David Barteck, former CFO and Michael A. Valenti III, former senior vice president of sales at CIMCO too were pleaded guilty for participating in the conspiracy. The sentence for them is expected to be announced in first week of November. It must be noted that the charges against Joseph were dismissed following his death last year.

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In accordance with documents filed in the case and statements made in the court, the accused used a variety of fraudulent business practices for a period of 17 years from 1999 to 2016, to buy scrap metal from customers for a lesser price. The purchased scrap metal was then resold at a good profit. They used several techniques to misrepresent the true weight and even the type of the scrap metal by doing alterations in the documents.