Florida Banker Gets Prison Time for Role in Scott Rothstein Fraud

A Florida banker will spend 2 1/2 years in prison following his conviction for helping Scott Rothstein operate a $1 billion-plus Ponzi scheme.

Frank Spinosa wept after a federal judge in Miami on Friday handed down the 30-month sentence, the Daily Business Review reported, apologizing and saying, “I wish I could take it back.” Mr. Spinosa, 54 years old, once worked for TD Bank, which has already paid $52.5 million to settle civil charges that it helped Mr. Rothstein defraud his investors.

As The Wall Street Journal has reported, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused TD Bank and Mr. Spinosa of creating misleading documents and making false statements about the accounts that Mr. Rothstein, the founder of a South Florida law firm, held at the bank to help Mr. Rothstein lure investors. At the time TD Bank announced the settlement, in September 2013, a lawyer for Mr. Spinosa said his client didn’t know about Mr. Rothstein’s fraud and never purposefully acted to further that fraud.

About two years later, Mr. Spinosa accepted a plea deal with federal prosecutors and entered a guilty plea to a count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The reduced charge carried a maximum five-year term, Daily Business Review reported, versus the 20-year maximum that each of his prior charges—six fraud counts—carried.

Mr. Rothstein has already pleaded guilty to bilking investors out of more than $1.2 billion and is serving a 50-year prison sentence. He has been debarred, and his now-defunct firm, Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, is in bankruptcy liquidation.

Write to Jacqueline Palank at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @PalankJ