January 10, 2017

New York announced the convictions of Lawrence D. Rosenbaum, 65, of Albany, New York, and his wife, Thomasine Henderson, 66. On January 5, 2017, Rosenbaum pleaded guilty to Grand Larceny, Securities Fraud and Tax Fraud for fraudulently soliciting hundreds of thousands of dollars from investors for kosher and halal cheese factories in upstate New York and bio-energy companies in New York State and Costa Rica. As part of his plea, Rosenbaum agreed to execute nearly $1,000,000 in judgments in favor of his victims, and he will be sentenced to 3 to 9 years in state prison. Also on January 5, Henderson pleaded guilty to Insurance Fraud and Falsifying Business Records in connection with her submission of a false claim in an attempt to obtain payment on a life insurance policy after her son’s suicide last year. According to the prosecution, Rosenbaum is an insurance broker who owned and operated Rosenbaum Financial Services in Albany, New York for decades. In approximately 2001, Rosenbaum formed a limited liability company, Saratoga Cheese Company LLC, which he claimed would develop a halal and kosher cheese plant in the Capital Region, using local dairy products and a cheese coagulator that he had learned about when he was an exchange student in Germany decades earlier. In 2006, Rosenbaum reformed this entity as Saratoga Cheese Corporation, with the stated purpose of developing a cheese manufacturing facility in Cayuga County. NY

Tagged in: Securities Fraud, Tax Fraud,