And in court filings last month, authorities said Joseph LaForte, his wife Lisa McElhone and the company’s chief financial officer, Joseph Cole Barletta, had conspired to bilk investors in the firm, though no charges have been filed against them for that crime.
The LaFortes’ business made its profits by raising billions from investors and then loaning it out — often at high interest rates — to cash-strapped smaller companies unable to secure loans from traditional banks. In 2006, both he and Joseph LaForte were convicted of a larceny and money laundering scheme in New York in which they defrauded more than 30 homeowners out of $14 million by falsely holding themselves out to be attorneys representing banks in real estate transactions.
Despite that extensive record — and at least in part due to his association with his brother’s company — authorities say LaForte had managed to successfully bounce back. In 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Par Funding, Joseph LaForte, McElhone and others accusing them of selling unregistered securities and alleging they’d defrauded company investors out of more than a half-billion dollars by playing down the high default rate among Par’s borrowers.
for spending millions in what they believed to be Par Funding proceeds on lawyers to defend them in court — money the receiver said should have been spent on repaying the company’s victims.