House Raffle Too Good to Be True

[Renew Deal]

It sounded like the deal of a lifetime: Buy a $50 raffle ticket for the chance to win a $1.6 million waterfront home on Long Island with a Mercedes-Benz thrown in.

The offer came from two men who had bought the house and poured $1 million worth of renovations into it with the hopes of reselling it. But the housing-market crash altered their plan and they came up with the raffle to repay the loan. They went on local television and radio news broadcasts to promote their scheme and thousands of people bought raffles through a Web site, fromrafflestoriches.com.

But when the raffle drawing date came and went with no word of a winner, the Nassau County District Attorney's office received 105 complaints, and an investigation followed. That led to the arrest Thursday of one of the partners in the Massapequa house on charges he stole more $100,000 and used it to finance a jet-setting lifestyle, authorities said.

According to District Attorney Kathleen Rice, Scott Cicerone, 32 years old, funneled the money from raffle sales to a private bank account and used the money to buy airline tickets, hotel rooms and to rent cars on trips to Las Vegas, Miami, Atlantic City, California and Oregon. He also used some of the funds to make payments on the Mercedes-Benz that was purportedly part of the grand prize, Ms. Rice said.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703583404576080282813614502.html

[Historic NY]

1. The good life grifter style.