The 57-year-old former CEO of a private equity firm in Laguna Niguel was sentenced Thursday, Oct. 15, to nearly three years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to defrauding hundreds of clients of more than $63 million.
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Marco Giovanni Santarelli, who founded and served as CEO of Norada Capital Management, also was ordered to pay more than $63 million in restitution after he pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in October 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Santarelli referred to himself as a “wealth creator” and pitched himself and his firm across podcasts and websites. Norada Capital Management said it offered unsecured, high-yield promissory notes backed by investments in Broadway musicals, real estate and cryptocurrency, but federal prosecutors said the firm was running a Ponzi scheme that drained more than 400 investors’ savings.
From June 2020 to June 2024, prosecutors alleged Santarelli got clients to invest in unsecured promissory notes between $25,000 and $500,000 with the promise that they’d receive monthly interest payments between 12% and 17% over the next three to seven years.
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Santarelli told clients the firm would invest their money in e-commerce, real estate, Broadway shows and cryptocurrency, and they’d receive the interest payments through income generated by those businesses, federal prosecutors said.
Through webinars, prosecutors said Santarelli pitched the investments as providing predictable monthly returns and were meant to be “passive investment” meant for retirement funds.
But the private equity firm didn’t pay the returns or interest payments, and instead invested in risky assets that weren’t profitable and had little return on investment, prosecutors said. Interest payments were made to clients using other investors’ money, prosecutors said.
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