MIAMI — Virtually $1 million in diamonds, stolen in 2017 as portion of an elaborate plan in which infamous conman James Sabatino pretended to be a music government symbolizing Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel, ended up a short while ago recovered by the FBI in Miami.
Sabatino, 46, is now serving a 20-12 months prison sentence at the optimum security jail in the region for stealing more than $10 million in jewels and other things, including the Timberlake-Biel jewels.
What created Sabatino’s crimes even additional exceptional is that he dedicated them from his jail cell at the Federal Detention Middle in Miami in which he was awaiting trial on other costs.
Making use of unlawful mobile telephones smuggled into the federal jail by corrupt guards, Sabatino would get hold of big jewelers pretending to be an govt with both a big tunes company, like Sony Tunes or Universal Music Group.
In accordance to federal prosecutors, he ran this “jail-dependent criminal organization” from Oct 2014 to Aril 2017.
Throughout that time, Sabatino, applying the identify of real songs executives, would convince the jewelers he was working with outstanding artists — Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce ended up between his favorites — and that he required diamond rings and necklaces for the gals to have on in their impending songs video clips.
Making use of unlawful telephones and tablets, he would build bogus email accounts that seemed like they arrived from music corporations to make his requests appear even additional reputable, officers stated.
Jewellery businesses who ended up eager for the publicity would comply, and by sending cases of jewels by armed courier to an tackle Sabatino provided, where his co-conspirators would indicator for them and try to provide them.
“Sabatino’s plan resulted in the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in jewelry,” FBI Special Agent Robert Giczy wrote in an affidavit.
In this scenario, Sabatino claimed to be doing work at Universal Songs on behalf of Timberlake and Biel, and claimed the couple have been getting ready to shoot a music online video jointly on Miami Beach front.
Forevermark, a subsidiary of the diamond huge De Beers, rapidly agreed and dispatched nine parts of jewelry, such as a 7.29 carat oval cut diamond value around $326,000 and an 8.55 carat emerald cut diamond truly worth $580,000.
The jewels have been delivered to the Ritz Carlton Hotel on Miami Seashore.
Several days afterwards, Forevermark recognized it had been hoodwinked.
Sabatino did not work for Universal, did not characterize Timberlake or Biel, and there was no audio movie.
As a substitute, the diamonds went bye, bye, bye.
Numerous of the stolen jewels have in no way been recovered.
However in June, the Gemological Institute of America, which costs the quality of diamonds, notified the FBI that it had received two diamonds that appeared to match the description of two of the stolen jewels from the fake Timberlake-Biel scheme.
In accordance to court information, the diamonds had been sent in June to the Gemological Institute by a jeweler in Boca Raton. There is no indication that the Boca Raton jeweler understood the diamonds have been stolen or how he received them.
In September, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gabrielle Raemy Charest-Turken, filed a movement to have the diamonds returned to Forevermark. The FBI is continuing to look into.
Forevermark declined to comment.
Sabatino, who plead guilty in 2017, is now housed in the best safety prison in the country – the SuperMax facility in Colorado.
