Two cozeners get prison time

John G. Rizzo was sentenced yesterday, December 16, to 30 months in prison for fraudulently hiring offshore boiler rooms to sell penny stock in software firm iTracker. Investors were not told that only 20 percent of their investments would go to the company; the rest would go to the boiler rooms. Investors lost $2.5 million in the scheme.

Brian Nels Peterson, who headed Terra Finance in San Diego, was sentenced to 41 months for originating millions of dollars' worth of fraudulent mortgage applications. Among other things, he would falsify applicant incomes, employment, assets, and liability information. He earned more than $1 million through kickbacks and brokerage fees and then evaded taxes on that income, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.