Woman behind a telemarketing scheme sentenced to 15 years

• Tweet
• Share
• Email

• Tweet
• Share
• Email

Anyone who thinks authorities don’t take telemarketing fraud cases seriously can think again, now that the woman behind a telemarketing scheme that defrauded more than 22,000 victims of $30 million got sentenced to 15 years in prison.

According to the Associated Press, a federal judge waved off the woman’s sobbing claims of remorse, even as she noted that she became a mother just a year ago.

U.S. District Judge G. Patrick Murphy rejected ‘s request for a 12-year term, and even criticized the 31-year-old New Jersey woman for going ahead and starting a family even though she was aware of the fact that her scam was being investigated by state and federal authorities.

“The tragedy of this is this very vulnerable young baby is going to get her start in life without her mother,” Murphy noted to the court. According to the Associated Press report, Kirk has a 15- month-old daughter.

“How in the world could you contemplate bringing a child into the world when you told me your world was destroyed?” Murphy asked the defendant.

According to federal prosecutors, Kirk operated a Florida-based company called Universal Marketing Solutions. It later became Creative Vacation Solutions, employing telemarketers who falsely told timeshare owners in unsolicited calls that they had buyers lined up ready to purchase their properties.

Federal prosecutor Bruce Reppert said these telemarketers were able to use slick sales tactics, and that Kirk’s callers were trained to solicit closing costs of up to several thousand dollars from people across North America and Puerto Rico, promising them refunds when the deals closed. The victims were told they would get that money within two to three months of the closing, the U.S. government alleged.

However, federal prosecutors also said Kirk’s companies sold few if any of the timeshares and pocketed those fees.

Kirk, of Howell, N.J., had no previous criminal record when she pleaded guilty in June to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud. She called her actions “horrible decisions” that shamed her family, and told the court “It was never my intention to cause harm to the thousands of people victimized. Somehow I convinced myself and others that we were helping people.”

The judge, though, countered that “I think the defendant thinks a lot more of herself than most in this courtroom. I think the defendant’s fan club is pretty small.”

Murphy fined Kirk $15,000 but did not order her to pay restitution, saying that was inconceivable considering how many millions got stolen.

Three of Kirk’s former employees used her business to spin off a similar timeshare scam called Real Timeshare Marketing. Federal prosecutors say they made $1.3 million using the same tactics that Kirk taught them. Those men, prosecuted separately from Kirk, are serving prison sentences handed down last year in East St. Louis ranging from 18 months to 10 years in prison and have been ordered to repay the money, with one of the defendants facing a restitution tab of $1.1 million.

Murphy accepted the defense’s request that Jennifer Kirk, formerly of Florida’s Lake Worth and Wellington, remain free on bond until she’s required to report to a prison, which Kirk’s attorneys say they hope is in Connecticut to allow her to be near her daughter.