US District Court Sentences Redwood City Man For $1.5m Wire Fraud

REDWOOD CITY, CA -- Renato Libric of Redwood City, the former chief executive officer of Bouxtie, Inc., was sentenced to three years in prison for wire fraud, U.S. Attorney Alex G. Tse and Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge John F. Bennett announced Wednesday.

The result of an FBI probe, the sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Maxine M. Chesney in San Francisco on the ex chief of the e-commerce gift procurement firm.

Libric, 39, and Zagreb, Croatia, pleaded guilty to the wire fraud charge on Sept. 5. According to his plea agreement, Libric admitted that from August 2017 through February 2018, he devised and carried out a scheme to defraud potential investors in Bouxtie, Inc., a Delaware corporation based in San Francisco. Libric admitted that an essential purpose of the scheme was to overstate the financial condition and prospects of Bouxtie, and to induce potential investors to believe Libric had authority to sell shares in Bouxtie to investors.

The Redwood City man took multiple steps to convince members of a Las Vegas-based company to invest over $1 million in Bouxtie. As part of the scheme, Libric fraudulently suggested to representatives of the potential investors that a large publicly-traded corporation was interested in purchasing Bouxtie at a price of $150 million. To bolster this claim, Libric fraudulently placed the signature of an executive with the alleged purchasing corporation on a forged document.

This documentation, called a "term sheet," purported to indicate the large corporation was interested in the purchase of Bouxtie. In addition, Libric caused the falsified document and bank statement to be transmitted to potential investors. The false bank statement suggested Bouxtie had a balance of over $2 million in an account when, in fact, there was only $7,642.82 in the account. Furthermore, Libric placed the signatures of members of Bouxtie’s board of directors on a document that served to authorize Libric to enter into agreements to sway investors to lend $1.5 million to Bouxtie. From there, the loan would eventually be converted into shares of Bouxtie.

As a result of his scheme, Libric convinced investors to transfer $1.5 million into accounts belonging to Bouxtie. After the $1.5 million was deposited, Libric withdrew more than $130,000 of the invested funds from an account and put the funds into his own checking account.

On May 10, a federal grand jury indicted Libric, charging him with one count of wire fraud. Four months later, Libric pleaded guilty to the charge and agreed to make restitution to the victims for their losses.

In addition to the prison term, the judge also sentenced the defendant to a three-year period of supervised release and ordered him to pay over $1.5 million in restitution. Libric has been in custody since his May arrest and will begin serving his sentence immediately.

Incorporated in 2014 on Tehama Street, Bouxtie was designed to allow online users to select and buy items from various brands and send digital gift cards electronically for the transactions.

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