Michael Cilmi, of Brooklyn, pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of enterprise corruption for conducting criminal activities while working at each brokerage at separate times. Cilmi faces between eight and 25 years in prison on each count at sentencing, scheduled in June before Manhattan Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder.
Prosecutors have frozen assets of defendants to pay back cheated customers upon conviction.
Marchiano ran a boiler-room operation in Naples where brokers spent hours on the phone hyping stocks before the firm closed in late 1998. At various times, the defunct firm also had offices in New York and New Jersey. The alleged Goldmen criminal enterprise is accused of manipulating the stocks of 10 small companies, among them the defunct Stadium Naples golf arena. Brokers are charged with numerous abuses that include manipulating share prices, lying to customers, refusing to sell shares, using bogus trading accounts, trading shares without customer permission to generate sales commissions, and concealing illegal conduct. In his guilty plea, Cilmi admitted to those abuses while working as a manager of senior brokers in the Goldmen enterprise from 1992 to 1996.