A former Connecticut man will spend 27 months in federal prison for cheating veterans out of $175,000 in a pair of Iraq business scams, federal prosecutors say.
Joseph T. Morris, 53, now of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., also was sentenced Tuesday in New Haven federal court to three years of supervised release and ordered to repay his victims $205,849 in restitution, the Connecticut U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Morris had faced up to 20 years in prison.
According to investigators and court testimony, Morris and two others formed a company in October 2011 to develop business opportunities in Iraq. Their initial focus was on establishing a pizza restaurant at the U.S. Consulate compound in Erbil.
The pair also claimed they were establishing a business to distribute and install specialty window film on vehicles and at hotels, residences, and government buildings, which would protect windows and windshields from blast and breakage, and provide heat retention, ultra-violet shielding, and privacy. Morris represented himself as the ventures’ in-country manager in Iraq.
However, Morris admitted in court that he misled his co-founders about his progress with their Iraq ventures, knowing they would tell others who would eventually want to invest with them, prosecutors said.
Ultimately, Morris defrauded about a dozen investors, mostly military veterans, diverting large sums of their money for his personal use, investigators said. It unraveled after one of the investors did some digging and discovered there was no restaurant lease or window-film business.
