Con Artist Gets 6 Years for Phony Gift Giveaway Scheme

A con artist who was once jailed after bilking a former wife of all her money during their honeymoon has been sentenced to six years in federal prison for a phony gift giveaway scheme.

U.S. District Judge Ferdinand F. Fernandez sentenced Mitchell Eisenberg, 41, of Woodland Hills on Monday after he pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud.

Assistant U.S. Atty. David A. Katz said the sentence was significant because it is believed to be longest term ever given a non-supervisorial person in illicit boiler room schemes in California.

Eisenberg was named in a federal indictment in July that accused him of being part of a boiler room operation in which customers were told they had won one of five grand prizes, including a car or a Caribbean cruise.

Katz said customers were told, however, that they had to put up $399, and later $563, to purchase “premiums” in order to avoid gift taxes on the prizes, which were never awarded.

At one point, Eisenberg admitted to investigators that he made $100,000 off the illicit scheme and did not report it to the Internal Revenue Service, Katz added.

Federal court records show that Eisenberg was convicted five times and sentenced for various fraud schemes dating back to 1964.

In 1971, records show, he married a woman in Las Vegas. During the couple’s Hawaiian honeymoon, however, Eisenberg took an undisclosed amount of traveler’s checks and credit cards from the woman, who later declared bankruptcy and had the marriage annulled.

The trips out of California violated Eisenberg’s parole from a previous conviction and, as a result, Eisenberg was jailed for two years.