- Joey Cipolla, 40, spent his life scamming people out of thousands of dollars.
- He also pleaded guilty to stealing $1 million worth of coronavirus relief funds.
- He is so hated that there is a Facebook group dedicated to attacking him.
A fraudster who spent years scamming people out of $1.1 million in coronavirus funds meant to support a lavish lifestyle could face prison for his crimes, it has been revealed.
Joey Cipolla drove a Lamborghini and a Bentley, often parked in the driveway of his 12,000-square-foot mansion in Bloomingdale, Illinois, an affluent suburb of Chicago.
He had his own Cessna, which he could fly, and was known to bet thousands of dollars at casino clips.
Rather than being a legitimate businessman, Cipolla has been a swindler and fraudster all his adult life. He previously pleaded guilty to harassing people by selling luxury cars on eBay and using coronavirus funds to buy a home.
Federal prosecutors now hope to keep him behind bars for 10 years as they develop their case for sentencing.
“He's like a talented Mr. Ripley,” Chicago restaurateur and victim Dion Antic told the Chicago Tribune. “He's a felon and this has been going on for years.”
Antic was referring to the 1999 film about con artists when he talked about Cipolla, who once handed over a fake $35,000 check for a used Corvette.
Three years ago, Antic started a Facebook account called Conned by Joey Cipolla as an outlet for his frustrations, and it now has more than 100 followers. Since then, he and Cipolla's other victims have forged lasting bonds through their shared experiences.
Those who are part of Antic's defrauded community say Cipolla's sentence only scratches the surface of what he is responsible for.
In November, Cipolla admitted his guilt. Prosecutors want him locked up for 10 years. His defense is seeking a seven-year sentence.
“It was a lifestyle fueled by unbridled greed,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Chapman wrote in a recent court filing. “There is no good reason to believe that if Cipolla is released, he will abandon his life of fraud and pursue a legitimate path to obtaining the necessities of life.”
Cipolla is in prison awaiting trial, sober and hoping to turn his life around, his defense attorney said.
Cipolla's criminal history and the charges against him are long.
In November, Cipolla admitted his guilt. Prosecutors want him locked up for 10 years. His defense is seeking a seven-year sentence.
In November, Cipolla admitted his guilt. Prosecutors want him locked up for 10 years. His defense is seeking a seven-year sentence.
The most serious and mysterious incident took place in 2017, when Jeffrey Charles Fox, 46, of Evanston, was arrested at Cipolla's apartment in an upscale Chicago building just steps from Lake Michigan. died after falling from the 39th floor balcony.
Two years ago, Fox was accused of assaulting a woman who is now Cipolla's wife.
Cipolla was not accused of any wrongdoing in the case. Fox's death was ruled an accident by the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.
By 2008, Cipolla had 15 convictions in four states, most of them for writing fraudulent checks to purchase cars. After he served prison terms in Illinois and Michigan, he was paroled in 2010, and by 2014 the court no longer supervised his release.
“By 2016 at the latest, he had returned to a relatively low-paying job defrauding people in private car sales,” U.S. Attorney Chapman said in the filing.
Chapman added that Cipolla forged documents to obtain an FAA pilot's license, and then his scheme focused on selling and renting aircraft.
He started companies, including one that stored planes in a hangar at the DuPage County Airport outside Chicago.
Cipolla also ran a car business on eBay. He admitted to defrauding customers by illegally rolling back the mileage on exotic cars he was selling.
Sometimes they would even drop off a vehicle in far worse condition than described while accepting payment for a vehicle they had never owned.
Those airplane and car businesses allowed Cipolla to apply for more than $1.35 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans, which were put in place during the pandemic to help business owners struggling with lockdowns.
In his guilty plea, Cipolla said he was actually given $1.18 million through the program, much of which he said he used to buy a five-bedroom, nine-bathroom home in Bloomingdale. Ta.
The home was sold in July 2020 for $1.3 million, according to an FBI search warrant.
He also spent the money on Louis Vuitton merchandise and jewelry.
Mr. Cipolla was indicted on federal tax charges in April 2022, and the fraud was ultimately discovered.
Prosecutors wanted to detain Cipolla because of his history of fleeing law enforcement, and that he attempted to flee when federal agents raided his home in July 2021.
Cipolla “attempted to escape from the officers by taking refuge on the roof of his home, which required law enforcement officers to summon him from the roof to ensure the safety of Cipolla and the officers.” prosecutors wrote in a motion to deny the suspect's bail.
Weeks before his April 2022 indictment, Cipolla was stopped for speeding and told a police officer he thought federal agents were following him. Cipolla later admitted that he had used cocaine shortly before the traffic stop, the Tribune reported.
According to court records, Cipolla was arraigned in the fall of 2022 and was ordered by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly on Nov. 29, 2022, to turn himself in to U.S. Marshals that same day.
Sure enough, as the prosecutor had warned, the investigators who were following him saw Cipolla get into a car without a license plate and try to flee.
Upon his arrest, he was taken to Chicago's Metropolitan Correctional Center, where he has been held without bond ever since.
The court heard from Mr. Cipolla on Tuesday through a letter he wrote in which he apologized for his “utterly greedy and selfish behavior.”
“I was selling cars and telling people what they wanted to hear just to sell,” Cipolla wrote. “I feel sorry for the people who lost money. I truly feel that way.”
