Westchester Man charged in $250,000 Copy Machine Scam

Thomas P. Zugibe, Rockland County District Attorney, announced last week that Joseph Holzberg, 50 of Scarsdale, NY had been charged with one count of criminal possession of stolen property and 42 counts of forgery in a scheme to defraud local business owners.

“This elaborate scheme in which the defendant was allegedly involved was motivated by greed, plain and simple,” said Zugibe. “The defendant’s client got its money. Holzberg received commission for ‘leasing’ the copy machines, but the victimized local business owner paid for machines that he didn’t possess.”

Holzberg, an independent contractor, was acting as a copy machine vendor in which he allegedly forged documents and invoices in an effort to incorrectly represent to his client, the owner of the copy machines, that he had leased the machines to a local business when he had not. As a result, Holzberg was paid commission from his client and the local business was charged $250,000 for copy machines it was not leasing.

In an effort to cover up the crime, Holzberg hid the copy machines in two separate storage facilities in Rockland County. Investigators from the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office Special Investigations Unit found the copy machines and arrested Holzberg on February 1^st.

Holzberg‘s next scheduled court date is on February 27. If convicted, he could see 15 years in prison.