The Last Guilty Plea: Par Funding Is Finally Over

After six years, a $550 million fraud, nine federal convictions, and a courtroom brawl, the company that put a mob-connected con man in charge of a merchant cash advance empire has entered its final guilty plea. Here's what it all means.

On March 9, 2026, in a Philadelphia federal courtroom, a court-appointed receiver walked in on behalf of a company that no longer really exists and entered a guilty plea that had been years in the making. Complete Business Solutions Group, Inc., better known in the alternative lending world as Par Funding, admitted to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and securities fraud. The corporate plea is the final formal act in one of the most damaging and revealing scandals the merchant cash advance industry has ever produced.

It's worth saying out loud: this case is over. Every principal is convicted. Every co-conspirator has pleaded or been sentenced. The company itself has now pled guilty. And more than 1,600 investors who were told they'd likely never see their money, are on track to recover nearly all of it.

But before we close the file on Par Funding, the industry deserves a clear-eyed look at what actually happened, what it cost, and what it still means for everyone operating in this space.

How $550 Million Disappeared Into a Lie

Par Funding was founded in Philadelphia in 2011 by Joseph LaForte, a man who had just been released from federal prison for a previous fraud conviction and whose real name and criminal history were concealed from every investor who ever put money into the company. That concealment was not an oversight. It was the foundation of the entire scheme.

The business model on paper was legitimate: Par provided merchant cash advances to small businesses that couldn't access traditional bank financing. MCAs are a real product with real demand. Par had real customers. In the early years, the returns were real too — investors were earning 10% annually or more, and word spread. Between 2011 and 2020, Par raised more than $550 million from over 1,700 investors, primarily through a network of outside salespeople and investment managers who collected commissions for funneling client money into Par's notes.

The problem was what was happening beneath the surface. LaForte and his co-conspirators were misrepresenting virtually everything material to investors: the company's underwriting standards and portfolio performance, default rates, profitability, insurance coverage, and the identities and backgrounds of company leadership. Par's revenues weren't just insufficient to generate the promised returns, they weren't even close. The business needed a continuous influx of new investor money to pay older investors, a structure that is, by definition, a Ponzi scheme.

Meanwhile, LaForte and company insiders were diverting hundreds of millions for personal enrichment. The assets seized when the scheme collapsed included a private jet, multiple luxury properties, vehicles, artwork, and jewelry. More than $200 million had been siphoned out of an enterprise that was supposed to be serving small business owners.

Then there was the violence. This wasn't just financial fraud. James LaForte, Joe's brother, a purported member of the Gambino crime family who had been formally inducted in October 2019, served as the company's collections enforcer. His methods included threats, physical assault, and in 2023, the ambush beating of the court-appointed receiver's lawyer, Gaetan Alfano, on a Center City Philadelphia street. The attack happened after the receivership had already been established. The LaFortes were trying to intimidate the legal process itself.

The Sentences: Every Person Who Touched This Case Went to Prison

The criminal accountability in this case is, by any measure, thorough. Here is where everyone landed:

Joseph LaForte, founder and functional CEO: 15 and a half years in federal prison. Ordered to pay $314 million in restitution and forfeit approximately $20 million in assets including his private jet. Pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, securities fraud, tax fraud, wire fraud, firearms violations, and obstruction of justice, including the street ambush of the receiver's attorney.

James LaForte, enforcer and Gambino family member: 11 and a half years in federal prison. Ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution. Pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, extortion, wire fraud, obstruction, and threats against witnesses.

Joseph Cole Barleta, CFO: 5 and a half years in federal prison for racketeering conspiracy.

Lisa McElhone, Joseph LaForte's wife: Pleaded guilty to helping conceal more than $40 million in earnings. Sentenced as part of the broader case.

Perry Abbonizio, investment manager who presented himself to investors as a co-owner: Six months in prison. Ordered to pay restitution.

Renato 'Gino' Gioe, Gambino associate and debt collector: 18 months in federal prison, $949,000 in restitution.

Rodney Ermel and Kenneth Bacon, tax professionals who prepared Par's fraudulent returns: Both pleaded guilty to felony offenses and received prison sentences.

The March 9, 2026 guilty plea from Par Funding as a corporate entity is the formal capstone to all of it. The receiver, who has been managing the wind-down since July 2020, entered the plea on the company's behalf, completing the criminal record against the enterprise itself.

The Investor Story: Against All Odds, Nearly Whole

The most remarkable subplot of the entire Par Funding saga is what happened to the investors. When the SEC placed Par in receivership in July 2020, the conventional wisdom, reinforced repeatedly by the commission's own statements, was that full recovery was highly unlikely. Investors were bracing for pennies on the dollar.

That is not what happened.

Through a combination of asset seizures, civil settlements, insurance recoveries, and negotiations with the outside salespeople and legal professionals who facilitated Par's fundraising, the receivership has assembled a recovery that is, by any standard, extraordinary for a fraud of this scale. Assets seized from the LaFortes and co-conspirators included $133 million in cash and $43 million in properties, vehicles, artwork, and jewelry. Additional settlements, including with insurers for a lawyer who played a central role in fundraising, and with a family group of early financiers, have added close to $100 million more.

As of November 2025, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that more than 1,600 victims are on track to recover nearly all of their money. In January and March of last year, investors collected checks totaling $110 million, about 44 cents for every dollar lost. With the additional settlements now flowing, recovery is expected to exceed 80 cents on the dollar, with the final distribution anticipated to approach full restitution.

Joe Brock, a management consultant who put $200,000 into Par, told the Inquirer: 'Sounds like Christmas to me.'

"More than 1,600 victims of the Par Funding scheme will get nearly all their money back, despite repeated warnings from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that full reimbursement would be highly unlikely."— Philadelphia Inquirer, November 2025

The Par Funding File Is Closed. The Lesson Isn't.

With the March 9, 2026 guilty plea from Complete Business Solutions Group, the Par Funding case is now complete in every legal sense. Joseph LaForte will spend the next fifteen years in federal prison. His brother will serve nearly twelve. The CFO is incarcerated. The mob-connected enforcer is incarcerated. The wife, the salespeople, the accountants, all convicted, all sentenced.

The company that employed them, funded through a structure that was rotten at its foundation, has now formally admitted in open court what everyone already knew: it was a fraud from the beginning.

For the MCA/Revenue Based Financing industry, the closure of this case is both a relief and a responsibility. The relief is obvious, a shadow that hung over the sector for six years is lifting. The responsibility is harder. Par Funding didn't happen in a vacuum. It happened inside an industry, surrounded by people who didn't ask hard enough questions for long enough. That's the part that doesn't get closed with a guilty plea.