Dave Guardala Pleads Guilty!!!
This entry was posted on 11/20/2008 7:41 AM and is filed under Guardala News.
Here it is - straight from Newsday -
BY KATHLEEN KERR
It's time for David Guardala to start playing the blues - the saxophone innovator pleaded guilty Wednesday to a federal charge that he used wire fraud to cheat fellow musicians out of their money.
Guardala, 49 - inventor of a state-of-the-art saxophone mouthpiece - pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Central Islip to one count of wire fraud. The plea deal requires Guardala to pay back $1.1 million to people he defrauded from New York to California.
Guardala plays the sax and grew up on Long Island. A number of well-known saxophonists, including Branford Marsalis, use the Guardala mouthpiece. He had a Bay Shore plant that manufactured the mouthpieces but ended his career in the mid-1990s and moved to Frankfurt, Germany.
A federal indictment had charged Guardala with scheming to convince acquaintances to give him money to invest in rare musical instruments, cameras and businesses that didn't exist.
The wire fraud count to which Guardala pleaded guilty involved a plan to get two acquaintances to send him a total of about $277,000 through Western Union and MoneyGram.
The money, sent from the U.S. to Germany, was meant as payments for expensive Linhof camera equipment Guardala said a German widow wanted to sell. The two men never received any camera equipment from Guardala.
"It's been a long time coming," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Lunger outside court. "This case is about a breach of trust."
Guardala's attorney, Martin G. Goldberg, said, "It's sad because he had a really good reputation in the world, the music world."
Another of Guardala's schemes involved investments in a company that he said would sell instruments made in Vietnam.
Guardala's victims included a childhood friend and a retired music teacher from the Islip school system.
Sentencing is expected in early 2009. He faces a maximum 20 years in prison. He also could receive a fine up to twice the $1.1 million in restitution he has already agreed to pay.
