Former NHL center Michael Peca, pictured during his playing days with the New York Islanders, was ... [+]
In a two-page letter sent to federal judge Joseph Bianco earlier this month, former New York Islanders captain Michael Peca and his wife Kristin asked that Bianco consider the extent and impact of Tommy Constantine’s crimes when determining how long the one-time aspiring race car driver should spend in jail.
“Tommy Constantine is indifferent to having harmed and stolen from so many victims,” reads part of the letter written by the couple. “He lacks a sense of moral responsibility and social conscience... Constantine is a habitual offender, a career criminal.”
Bianco rendered his decision Tuesday in Long Island federal court and sentenced the 54-year-old Constantine to 10 years’ imprisonment. Constantine and co-defendant Phil Kenner — a financial advisor to the Pecas and numerous other retired NHL players and Long Island citizens — were convicted in July, 2015 of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Federal prosecutors say Constantine and Kenner bilked their victims out of tens of millions of dollars and used the money for their own personal use.
Kenner, 51, was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison last month.
The two convicts, both from Arizona, gained the trust of clients like the Pecas and former Islander and New York Ranger Bryan Berard, and promised that the investors’ money would be channeled into Hawaii land developments and a “start-up credit card business based in Arizona,” according to federal prosecutors.
Instead, Kenner and Constantine used the money to operate three separate schemes beginning as far back as 2002, authorities say. In one fraudulent operation, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, the two men secured $100,000 each from Berard, Peca and others and said the money would be used to invest in Hawaii luxury properties “and to open personal lines of credit at a bank, collateralized by their personal stock, bond and savings accounts worth at least $10 million.”
But prosecutors say the investors’ money was used to fund Constantine’s personal expenses and for Kenner to buy a personal stake in separate real estate projects in Hawaii and Mexico. Constantine also made nearly $2 million from a separate Hawaii real estate transaction that was “funded with assets diverted from Peca, Berard and others.”
“I got conned by Tommy Constantine,” Berard, 43, wrote in a letter to Bianco prior to Tuesday’s sentencing hearing. “Tommy Constantine is no different than Phil Kenner and both defendants ruined my life. I thought I had ‘generational’ money that would allow my grandkids to have a better life.”
Another scheme involved Kenner and Constantine setting up a phony “Global Settlement Fund.” Again, millions of their clients’ money were used to fund Constantine’s and Kenner’s lavish lifestyles: Kenner invested in a Mexico tequila company and Constantine made a failed attempt to buy Playboy Enterprises.
“When the investors started asking questions, rather than come clean, Constantine doubled down, re-victimizing the victims by convincing them to put even more good money in their bad hands,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme. “The jury’s verdict, and the Court’s sentences, reaffirm that greed-fueled crime will not pay off for fraudsters in the end.”
Berard, a former No. 1 draft pick (1995) by the Ottawa Senators, suffered a horrific eye injury during a game in 2000 when he played for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He was able to continue his NHL career after multiple eye surgeries, and in the letter to Bianco, Berard said he returned millions to an insurance company after he resumed his hockey career. But when Berard met Kenner and Constantine and entrusted them with his career earnings, the hockey defenseman’s personal wealth disappeared.
“The reality is that I suffered greatly because of Mr. Constantine and can assure this Court that he will never change,” Berard wrote in the letter.
Constantine had already spent time in prison in the 1990s after he pleaded guilty in Illinois to one count of delivery of a controlled substance - cocaine. In the letter to Judge Bianco written by the Pecas, the couple underscored several times how Constantine had not demonstrated any remorse after all of the pain he had inflicted over the years.
“The fact that (Constantine) served considerable time in federal prison wasn’t enough to deter him from committing serious crimes again,” the Pecas wrote. “These narcissistic and sociopathic characteristics all point to him never changing.”
