Monmouth Beach Man Convicted In $43M Finance Fraud Scheme

MONMOUTH BEACH, NJ — A Monmouth Beach man — who Patch wrote about when he was first arrested last December — has now been convicted in a securities fraud scheme that made him and two other men $43 million.

The man is Joseph Cammarata, 48, of Monmouth Beach; the case against him was prosecuted by U.S. Attorneys. Cammarata was convicted alongside two other men, David Punturieri, 42, of Staten Island and Erik Cohen, 41, of Manalapan.

Cammarata used the funds to support his lavish lifestyle, including the use of private jets, expensive homes, luxury cars, and yachts and even the maintenance of a private island in the Bahamas, said the FBI. Cammarata, pictured here, allegedly owns 'Sandy Cay' private island in the Bahamas.

All three men were principals of Alpha Plus Recovery, a claims aggregator firm based in Old Bridge.

Cammarata and the two other men made more than $43 million between 2014 and 2021 because they lied: They claimed their clients owned securities that were part of lucrative lawsuit settlements or government settlements.

The three men made up bogus brokerage firms and other financial documents to provide to claims administrators, say the feds.

Punturieri and Cohen previously pleaded guilty.

Cammarata refused to plead guilty and his case was the only one of the three that went to trial.

“As investigators closed in, Cammarata doubled down on his lies in order to perpetuate the fraud," said Jacqueline Maguire, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division. "What Cammarata didn’t know was that agents from the FBI and Postal Inspectors were methodically building a case based on his emails and phone calls. This conviction sends a message to all sophisticated white collar criminals that no one is beyond the reach of the FBI."

None of the men has been sentenced yet.

“A jury has found that Cammarata and his partners at Alpha Plus manipulated complicated financial transactions for years,” said U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero. “They committed fraud on top of fraud, filing claims on behalf of clients that didn’t exist and doctoring false financial documents to support those fraudulent claims. Their theft took money from the pockets of deserving claimants. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of the investigators and prosecutors on this case, all three have now been brought to justice.”

The FBI said Cammarata used the U.S. mail system to submit the fraudulent claims, and the U.S. postal service began working with the FBI to track what he was mailing and receiving.

The FBI, IRS and U.S. Postal Service investigated this case.

"I want to once again remind people that stealing money through the U.S. Mail is a crime," said Raimundo Marerro, inspector in charge of the Philadelphia Division of the Postal Inspection Service.

First Patch report on Joseph Cammarata: Monmouth Beach Man Indicted On Securities Fraud Charges (Dec. 2021)