Former CPA Jailed For DeFrauding Seniors In Cuba Scheme

Herald & Review
Decatur, Illinois
10 January 2016

Former CPA jailed for defrauding seniors in Cuba scheme

DECATUR – Gregory S. Stoerger, a former Mattoon-based certified public accountant, is in jail on $50,000 bond after he allegedly defrauded two Decatur seniors out of $5,600 by promising them investments in Cuba that would result in selling their condominium.

Stoerger, 34, was arrested Thursday after he admitted to investigators from the Macon County State's Attorney's Office that he received checks from the victims, which he cashed, knowing “they would not be getting their money back,” and “he knew what he did was deceitful,” said a probable cause affidavit by investigator David Cook.

On Nov. 20, Stoerger went to the residence of the two victims, a 75-year-old woman and 86-year-old man. He promised them “a return on money if they invested with him in a foreign investment exchange in Cuba,” Cook wrote in his statement.

The couple gave Stoerger a check for $3,600.

Stoerger returned to the couple's home Dec. 9. “This time he was asking for $2,000 with a promise that he would purchase their condominium.”

After he explained that he would invest the money in order to make enough of a return to purchase their condominium, they gave him a check for $2,000.

In his statement, Cook notated that Stoerger was convicted in Champaign County in a 2013 case, in which he stole about $19,000 from a church for which he was doing the accounting.

He was convicted of felony forgery in that case on Oct. 15, 2013, and sentenced to a two-year term of conditional discharge. That term expired five weeks before he contacted the Decatur victims at their home.

Stoerger, a licensed certified public accountant since January 2012, did not renew his license when it expired Sept. 30, 2015, according to records of the Illinois Division of Professional Regulation.

He is being held in the Macon County Jail on a charge of theft by deception over $5,000, victims over 60 years old. He is due in court by Friday for his arraignment.