Syracuse Sun

Kris Roglieri, age 44, of Queensbury, New York, has been indicted on wire fraud charges. United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman and Craig L. Tremaroli, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), made the announcement.

Roglieri operated Prime Capital Ventures, LLC (“Prime Capital”) and Prime Commercial Lending, LLC (“Prime Commercial”), among other companies based in Albany.

The indictment and an earlier-filed criminal complaint allege that Prime Capital held itself out as a commercial lending business. As part of contractual arrangements with its borrower clients situated across the country, Prime Capital obtained upfront interest payments from prospective borrowers while it sought to secure loans for those borrowers; these upfront interest payments were characterized by Prime Capital as the “Interest Credit Account Payment,” or “ICA” payment for short. ICA payments did not represent fees to Prime Capital. Instead, each borrower’s upfront ICA payment would be debited over time as the loan was funded and accrued more interest. An ICA payment would also be refundable if Prime Capital failed to secure a loan for the borrower client.

Roglieri is alleged to have defrauded a Minnesota company in December 2023 by committing to fund, through Prime Capital, an approximately $100 million commercial project. At that time, Prime Capital had failed to fund numerous loans promised to earlier clients; failed to return tens of millions of dollars in ICA payments to earlier clients once those loans did not materialize; and had been sued multiple times by clients alleging fraud and seeking the return of ICA payments.

On December 22, 2023, Roglieri signed a Deposit Agreement on behalf of Prime Commercial by which he agreed to keep the Minnesota company’s ICA payment in a “separate and distinct” bank account and hold it as a “trust fund.” That same day, the Minnesota company wire transferred a $5 million ICA payment to a Prime Capital account controlled by Roglieri. He then transferred and spent these funds on various expenditures including transferring $950,000 to meet a financial obligation to another Prime Capital client; paying $84,000 for his purchase of a Rolex day-date 36 mm yellow gold diamond bezel watch; paying $101,000 for round-trip private air travel between Albany International Airport and Anguilla for a family vacation from about December 29, 2023 to January 5, 2024; and paying $400,000 to a law firm representing Prime Capital in court proceedings.

The charges in the indictment are merely accusations. The defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

If convicted, Roglieri faces up to 20 years in prison and a maximum $250,000 fine per count as well as up to three years of supervised release. A defendant’s sentence is imposed by a judge based on the particular statute violated along with U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other factors.

United States Magistrate Judge Christian F. Hummel ordered Roglieri detained after his May 31 arrest on the criminal complaint.

The FBI is conducting this ongoing investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joshua R. Rosenthal and Michael Barnett are prosecuting this case.

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