Another MetLife Employee Strikes Again!

Just a few days ago I reported on how former MetLife employee, Mark Edward Salyer of Tennessee, was responsible for the investment fraud scheme to the tune of $6 million between June of 2005 until June of 2007.

Three days later, on October 6, 2011, Pensylvannia resident John Wosotowsky pleaded guilty to two counts (mail fraud and filing a false income tax return) after defrauding MetLife investors. That’s right. Another fraud within the company.

Wosotowsky was a certified licensed financial planner for MetLife Securities but ended up stealing around $2.5 million from 25 people over the time span of 11 years. Victims were told that their investments were safe under the MetLife umbrella of companies and that they would see a high return. However what Wosotowsky failed to tell investors was that he acquired their money and put it into his own account, Equity I & R, and never invested their money as promised. Apparently many of the victims were elderly citizens. Little did they know but their money was feeding Wosotowsky’s gambling addictions, not their investment accounts.

He often forged change of address notices and requests for disbursements. To keep clients and MetLife in the dark, Wosotowsky used an address that was just a mail drop that he controlled to have monies and legitimate account statements sent to. In order to lull his victims into believing their investments were safe, Wosotowsky sent out either monthly or quarterly statements that were completely fabricated. He occasionally returned money when a victim borrowed from a product or needed to cash it out. For those who had products that required monthly checks, he sent them. However, all of the monies repaid to victim clients came from her other victims. Wosotowky also failed to report the monies which he defrauded from his clients for the period from 2005 through 2008 for a tax loss of more than $213,000 – Source.

Wosotowksy could face up to 23 years in prison, a fine of $500,000, or both.

If you have been scammed and would like to file a scam report, please click here.