United States v. Stevan Todorovic

MEMORANDUM

Stevan P. Todorovic appeals his conviction by a jury on seven counts of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343 and 2, and three counts of mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 2. These charges arose from Todorovic’s operation of two telemarketing businesses, American Bartending Institute (ABI) and Consumer Response Group (CRG) (also described as “Shopping for Cash”). These businesses purportedly offered training materials, certification, and jobs or job placement in bartending or “mystery shopping,” respectively, in the victim’s locality for a fee charged to customers’ credit cards or bank accounts, when the consumers called in response to advertisements in local newspapers. The government alleged that ABI and CRG were fraudulent schemes because the training materials and certifications were essentially worthless, ABI and CRG did not provide jobs, the job listings that they provided were drawn from businesses listed on the internet or in the yellow pages, ABI and CRG had no affiliation or contact with those businesses, and those businesses were not necessarily seeking applicants. Todorovic also appeals his sentence of 72 months of imprisonment,…