EDISON — The former president of an investment company in the Iselin section of Woodbridge was sentenced to 15 months in prison for defrauding investors out of more than $250,000, according to U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman.
Shreyans Desai, 27, of Edison — formerly of Shreysiddh Capital LLC — previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge William J. Martini to two counts of a superseding indictment charging him with wire fraud. The third count in the indictment — securities fraud — was dismissed after Martini imposed the sentence in Newark federal court on Dec. 3.
According to authorities, Desai misled a number of investors about his licensing status and the registration status of the company to induce them to entrust their money to him so that he could trade securities on their behalf.
Desai then sought to retain control of the funds by providing investors with an inflated value of their investments, and inflated the amount of commissions that he purportedly earned through trading those funds, authorities said.
In addition to the prison term, the judge sentenced Desai to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution of $121,250.