A Pennsylvania furniture heir told wealthy tycoons that he would use their millions to fund startup companies, but instead he used their cash on his lavish lifestyle, which included private jet flights, country club memberships, and extravagant parties.
Josh Verne, 48, was sentenced to more than nine years in federal prison on Wednesday after duping billionaires like David Adelman, Bart Blastein, and Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin into handing over their money under false pretenses from 2017 to 2020.
Instead of putting their money toward the business ventures he said he would, Verne spent $12 to $24 million on renovating his Jersey Shore vacation home, traveling on private flights, joining ritzy country clubs, and paying for his daughters’ bat mitzvahs, prosecutors said.
Facebook photos showed the father-of-two having a blast at one of his daughter’s bashes, with him appearing to steal the show by singing into a microphone and dancing with a custom t-shirt on that read ‘Josh’s Sweat Shirt.’
A friend who shared the photos online in June 2019 said Verne and his now ex-wife, Kami Hockfield Verne, ‘know how to throw a fabulous party!’
He recently moved to a ritzy high-rise apartment in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after moving out of his $1.7 million mansion in the extremely upscale Pennsylvania community of Gladwyne, according to public records.
Verne and his family founded the Philadelphia-based furniture company Chuck’s Bargain House, which was later named Home Line Furniture Industries. He worked for the business from 2000 to 2011, when it closed due to financial hardships.
Verne then founded an employee payroll-deduction purchasing program called Workpays.me LLC and FlockU, a digital media platform aimed at college students that he convinced Adelman to invest in.
Josh Verne, the heir to Philadelphia-based furniture company Chuck’s Bargain House, was sentenced to more than nine years in federal prison on Wednesday for duping tycoons out of millions that he used for himself
Verne spent $12 to $24 million on renovating his Jersey Shore vacation home, flying in private jets, and paying for his daughters’ bat mitzvahs. He is seen at one of their parties in 2019
In doing so, Verne lied about his business background and his so-called $50 million net worth to Adelman with forged financial documents he said were from Goldman Sachs, prosecutors said.
In reality, there was no Goldman Sachs account in his or his family’s name, ‘much less an account with a market value of more than $50 million,’ according to the US Attorney’s Office.
Once that company flopped, prosecutors said Verne turned it into Ownable, an online marketplace that would lease laptops and smartphones to people who couldn’t afford them.
When Ownable came along, Verne got Adelman to invest more of his money after telling the millionaire he was putting in more than $2 million of his own money into the company, but he never did so, according to prosecutors.
From there, he went on to get other prominent money makers to shell out their cash, all while his most recent company was burning to the ground and his personal life was flourishing.
He also told his benefactors that he was worth nearly $100 million, even though he never has been, prosecutors said.
Verne was able to deceive the millionaires by using his charm and confidence to persuade them he was someone he wasn’t, according to prosecutors.
After pleading guilty, Verne admitted that he tried to lay low from law enforcement by sending fraudulent FedEx and bank confirmations ‘purporting to confirm delivery of funds to investors to whom he had promised repayment,’ prosecutors said.
Verne is seen at one of his daughter’s bat mitzvahs in 2019 alongside his ex-wife, Kami Hockfield Verne (left). He donned a t-shirt that read ‘Josh’s Sweat Shirt’ on his daughter’s big day (right)
He recently moved out of his $1.7 million mansion in the extremely upscale Pennsylvania community of Gladwyne, Pennsylvania
He also stole the identity of one of his former employees by forging their signature on a sales agreement in order to ‘disguise an unauthorized sale of the employee’s shares of stock,’ the US attorney’s office detailed.
Verne went on to use the $150,000 he obtained from that phony sale to make payments to a prior investor and to himself.
During his sentencing, Verne admitted that he ‘destroyed’ his career, reputation, and personal life because of his poor choices, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
‘I alone am responsible for that. Not the circumstances, not the pressure, but me,’ he added.
Meanwhile, prosecutors labeled him an ‘extraordinarily capable conman’ whose scheme ‘was not an aberration – it was a business model.’
‘This wasn’t a poor man who was trying to feed his family,’ Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerome Maiatico stated in court.
‘He wanted to live a lifestyle that he couldn’t otherwise afford. And he sustained that with deception.’
Verne pleaded guilty to three counts of securities fraud, nine counts of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft.
He scammed billionaires like David Adelman (pictured), Bart Blastein, and Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin into handing over their money under false pretenses from 2017 to 2020
Verne recently moved to a ritzy high-rise apartment building in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
He will spend a total of 111 months behind bars before serving three years of supervised release, US District Judge John F. Murphy ruled.
Both his attorneys and prosecutors said they are still trying to finalize exactly how much Verne owes his victims, even though he is now ‘penniless,’ his federal public defenders said.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Verne had raised a whopping $31 million from investors and misspent around half of it, according to a 2023 civil court filing.
He spent more than $9 million of that on personal expenses and about $5 million on ‘Ponzi-like payments’ to select investors, the SEC said.
The Daily Mail contacted Verne’s lawyers for comment.
