Wauconda man sentenced to 9 years for Ponzi scheme

A Wauconda man who admitted to running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded 40 investors of more than $2 million has been sentenced to nine years in prison.

A federal judge sentenced Paul Joseph Cirigliano, who used the name “Paul Cirano” in business dealings, on one count of mail fraud, which he admitted to in a plea deal.

Cirigliano was originally charged with three counts of mail fraud for soliciting investments to fund Panoptic Studios and Panoptic Corporation, a Wauconda company that produced video, graphics and websites.

Authorities said the funds he received from 40 investors from Illinois and several other states were intended to purchase analog video recording equipment to resell to companies in the U.S. and South America that still used the outdated technology. Cirigliano promised investors a return of up to 20 percent in as few as 30 days, but he never purchased the equipment, according to prosecutors.

Cirigliano used those investments to repay earlier investors and pay personal and business expenses, according to the plea agreement.

The 55-year-old, whose criminal background includes a 1991 conviction for wire fraud and 1992 conviction for grand theft, was sentenced to 115 months in prison Thursday.

He was also ordered to pay $1,931,361 in restitution to the victims of his Ponzi scheme.

Cirigliano admitted that he began running the scheme in 2004 until Feb. 17 of this year.

Cirigliano was sentenced to 46 months in prison for the 1991 wire fraud conviction and 33 months for his 1992 grand theft conviction in Florida.