Anyone know Mark Yaffe from Tampa?

"Great guy"???



Sorry, but someone that commits fraud in excess of $3 million doesn't meet my definition of a "great guy".



And if the quote from Heritage is accurate, "the company would hire Yaffe if he was available and pay him between $250,000 and $500,000 a year.", that doesn't reflect very well on Heritage.



EDIT of 12/7/15: I have been informed (below) that the statement from Heritage was completely inaccurate. Therefore, the paragraph above is now irrelevant.

Unbelievable, great guy, just don't leave anything of value laying around.



20 months for 3 million, I would do 200 days for a million. Where do I sign up. I get a vacation and my wife gets a break



Surprised the irs is not after him also.

I agree. If you steal someone else's money (not exactly what happened here) and take credit for being charitable with it, does it make you a "great guy"?

Depends on how you view Robin Hood, I suppose

It doesn't appear that he's distributed any of his money as his good deeds appear to be more to do with donating his time as he "raised money for autistic children and assisted living homes. He mentored homeless teenagers, even taking them into his home for months so they could get on their feet and apply themselves in school with newfound diligence."


Also, if this comes back to individual depositors or tax payers paying more, it would appear to be a wealth transfer from individuals to his family.

A crook is a crook is a crook..... lock him up. Damn thieves get away with too much.

No mercy.... Cheers, RickO

+1

Locking him up for 20 months making license plates probably won't offer much toward his repayment to the bank

Nice house, but seems like greed got the best of him.

As part of National Gold Exchange in the 1990's I remember them doing very well on their Eliasberg collection purchases. Sharp group. But, now they follow fellow big time coin dealers Tom Noe, Martin Haber, and others to jail.

I did not miss the restitution part, he made some payments before he was sentenced to make himself look better to everyone, he will Never pay it back in full. No trust is 100% unbreakable. He started it he can change it.

When some kids broke into a house of mine they were ordered to pay restitution. I got a 500 dollar check for a few of them and never another dime after that.

20 months isn't so bad and he's lucky it's a lot less than the 37-40 months recommended in the pre-sentencing report. There's still a lot of life to live afterwards.


His term is much shorter than other US prison sentences for bank fraud. He's also a lot better off than those defrauding banks in China and Iran who have received the death sentence and have been executed.


Hopefully he can stay positive and come out of this a better person.

very true

Is high end numismatics so devoid of talent, that Heritage would hire and pay a convicted felon upwards of $500K annually? I should expect more but I guess whether it's a bank or client... as long as its other people money.

My speculation is that the creation of the $7m trust after the bankruptcy filing was a big issue since this money could have been used to restore creditors. It would have looked better if this was created before the bankruptcy filing. He may have been able to get the 1 year of house arrest and 3 years of probation (or even get the suit dismissed) if he was able to repay the bank. Options for this include dissolving the $7m trust or finding another lender. Perhaps Heritage, the organizations he raised funds for, or others would be willing to provide such a loan given his expertise and past good works.


One issue with house arrest or probation without restitution is it could look like he took $3m from the bank, put it in a $7m trust, and then spends 4 years living off of the bank's $3m in the trust which he keeps forever. If it was okay to do that, I imagine many people would start doing that and it could end commercial lending as we know it.

For that, you can look at the Americans who elected those (primarily Democrat) Congressmen. Are you saying certain American voters are slapping the face of all Americans?


There are structural changes happening in the US economy (the effects of which are evident in our hobby) and some more fundamental changes may be needed to change course.

Look at coins this way… You're damned if you do (and if you don't look at them ), you're damned if you don't.

Just say "Noe" to coins. Who brought in the politics ? I brought up economics of the banking system.

Since when do we allow posts and/or comments of obvious political nature on these boards? Didn't someone get banned recently for this?

The statement attributed to Heritage in a previous post was completely inaccurate.

I did ask Lee Sanders, and he answered as follows:



"In the sentencing hearing, I testified that someone might hire Mark in $250-500k range, but as for our company (Heritage) I would not be the one to make that decision, it would be management. The Tampa Tribune reported my testimony inaccurately."

Wow it's been years now is Mark a free man?