Telemarketer Gets Eight-Year Prison Term

An Aliso Viejo telemarketer who bought two Rolls-Royces and evaded authorities for three weeks after bilking more than 500 investors of almost $5 million has been sentenced to eight years in federal prison.

Robert Louis Syrax, 57, also was ordered Monday to repay those he defrauded through his Gecko Holdings in Costa Mesa, which he promoted as an online gaming business about to go public.

Investors were promised that their shares, priced at $2, would double or triple in value in a few months, prosecutors said. Investors poured as much as $200,000 each into the company, but Gecko never went public.

Instead, Syrax and his wife, Sandra Diane Coronado, 46, took $2.5 million and fled earlier this year, first to Las Vegas, then to Florida. Authorities caught up with them in a Florida hotel room, where Syrax was found smoking a Cuban cigar and drinking vodka.

Along with four others, they were indicted on 26 counts each of mail fraud, wire fraud and interstate transportation of fraudulently obtained property. Both Syrax and Coronado pleaded guilty. Her sentencing is scheduled for next month.

Syrax faced up to 11 years in prison. But prosecutors agreed to recommend the lower end of the sentencing range in exchange for Syrax’s cooperation with a plan to use some $2 million in seized assets to repay investors.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ellyn Lindsay said the hope is for the victims to receive 30 cents to 40 cents on the dollar.

But the prosecutor also told the court that Syrax and Coronado had ruined many people’s lives.

“He cold-heartedly stole almost $5 million so he could live the high life,” she said.