A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the son-in-law of crooked former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to two years in federal prison for bilking investors out of nearly $6 million through a Ponzi scheme. Marcello Trebitsch, 37, ran the sham investment company Allese Capital with his wife, Silver’s daughter Michelle, the company’s accountant, according to prosecutors. She has not been charged.
From 2007 to 2014, Marcello Trebitsch took in more than $7.2 million in investors’ money, promising to sink it into a variety of investment arrangements. Instead, in each case, prosecutors said he and his wife directed much of it to their own accounts and spent it while sending out statements showing substantial profits. What money Marcello did invest he suffered net losses on, and when clients asked to pull money out, he paid them partially, if at all, out of the commitments of later clients. In all, he screwed four clients out of $5.9 million, according to prosecutors.