The pitch was well-timed and well-targeted. In the summer of 2018, Peter Quartararo of Glen Cove, New York, began approaching acquaintances with an opportunity that seemed to arrive at exactly the right moment: pre-IPO access to the hottest private companies in America. Peloton, Airbnb, WeWork, Petco — all expected to go public, all expected to surge.
Peter Quartararo claimed he had shares at roughly $2 each and, as a gesture of goodwill, was willing to cut trusted people in on the upside. Six investors believed him. They gave him between $14,000 and $202,000 apiece. He spent the money on food, travel, a Mercedes SUV, and the down payment on a Maserati. Not a single share was ever purchased. On March 31, 2026, a federal court in New York entered a final judgment by default against him, closing the SEC’s civil enforcement record five years after the original complaint was filed.
A Broker Who Had Been Barred in 2013 for the Same Pattern of Conduct
Quartararo worked as a registered securities representative from April 2000 through September 2011 at various brokerage firms. His career in regulated finance ended not through resignation but through expulsion. In 2013, FINRA permanently barred him from association with any FINRA-registered brokerage firm after finding he had willfully violated federal securities laws by soliciting acquaintances with a penny stock tip, failing to invest the funds, and then providing false documents to the investors who asked where their money had gone. The conduct was not incidental. It was a template.
Six years after that bar, Quartararo was running the same scheme at larger scale and with more prominent companies as bait. He had no license, no regulatory standing, and no access to pre-IPO shares in any prominent private company. What he had was a credible delivery, a network of acquaintances willing to vouch for him to their friends, and two financial enablers who had their own reasons to avoid scrutiny.
The Pre-IPO Pitch, the Starbucks Meeting and the Handwritten Bill of Sale
The scheme spread through personal introductions. Investor A came in first, putting in $96,000 for Airbnb and then two more checks totaling $106,000 for Peloton. He introduced his girlfriend, who invested $72,000. He introduced two brothers he knew, who met Quartararo at a Starbucks in Jericho, New York where the pitch was laid out in full: pre-IPO shares in Airbnb, Peloton, and WeWork at $2 per share, to be liquidated once the companies completed their IPOs, with profits paid out in five to six months. Both brothers wrote checks for $81,000 each.
Quartararo instructed every investor to write their checks not to himself but to either his father, Leonard Quartararo, or to Private Equity Solutions, an entity controlled by his business associate Paul Casella. When the brothers asked why the check was going to someone named Leonard, Quartararo first claimed that was his legal name, then admitted it was his father. To provide a veneer of formality, he handwrote and signed a bill of sale specifying the companies and share amounts. The memo lines on the investors’ own checks told the story they believed: “43,500 Airbnb, 18,000 WeWorks, 19,500 Pelaton,” wrote one investor, misspellings intact.
Paul Casella’s Criminal Record and What Happened to the Money Within Minutes of Deposit
The two accounts that received investor funds were controlled by men who had no business handling investor money. Casella was barred by FINRA in 2008 and convicted on federal racketeering charges in 2011 in connection with the trafficking of women from Eastern Europe to work as exotic dancers. His company, Private Equity Solutions, incorporated in Jericho, New York in 2017, purported to offer debt restructuring services. He was the sole authorized signatory on its checking account. Leonard Quartararo, Peter’s father, then 78 and living in Staten Island, held the other receiving account.
What happened to the funds after deposit removed any ambiguity about intent. On August 30, 2019, Investor A’s $71,000 was deposited into Leonard Quartararo’s account at 11:53 a.m. Two minutes later, $7,600 in cash was withdrawn. On October 4, 2019, Investor D’s $81,000 check was deposited at 12:07 p.m. Four minutes later, $9,000 in cash was gone. In total, at least $156,000 in cash was withdrawn from Leonard Quartararo’s account across the scheme. From the Private Equity Solutions account, $14,500 went to Peter Quartararo’s girlfriend Lisa Eckert, $28,300 went to Casella’s personal account, and $8,500 was paid to a Long Island car dealership as the down payment on a Maserati registered to Eckert and owned by Quartararo.
Two Arrests, Two Rounds of False Promises and a Second Scheme While the First Was Still Running
Peloton completed its IPO in September 2019. Airbnb went public in December 2020. WeWork announced in September 2019 that it was cancelling its planned IPO entirely. None of these events prompted Quartararo to return a dollar to any investor. Instead, he told Investor A in June 2020 that he had 56 investors across multiple pre-IPO positions and was “close” to selling. He told the brothers in December 2020 that he would “sell at the beginning of the year and you’ll get your money.” No money came.
The Nassau County District Attorney’s Office arrested Quartararo in April 2021 after the SEC filed its civil complaint. He was re-arrested in August 2021 on a separate set of charges involving additional victims he had approached with the same pitch, this time featuring DoorDash, Airbnb, and Petco shares. The total amount defrauded across both cases reached approximately $520,000 and covered six victims. Leonard Quartararo pleaded guilty to criminal facilitation in July 2021 and received a conditional discharge. Casella pleaded guilty to the same charge in December 2022 and received a conditional discharge.
The Prison Sentence and the SEC Default Judgment That Followed
Peter Quartararo pleaded guilty in the state criminal action on February 9, 2024, before Judge John Zoll in Nassau County Supreme Court, to five counts of second-degree grand larceny, one count of third-degree grand larceny, and one count of first-degree scheme to defraud. On June 13, 2024, he was sentenced to two and a half to seven and a half years in prison and ordered to pay $249,000 in restitution. The Nassau County DA had sought four to twelve years. On March 31, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York entered the SEC’s final civil judgment by default, permanently enjoining Quartararo from violating the antifraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
Conclusion
Peter Quartararo was caught doing the same thing twice: soliciting acquaintances with investment promises he could not keep, routing the money through accounts he did not officially control, and spending it on personal expenses while the investors waited for IPO payouts that never arrived. The first version got him a FINRA bar in 2013. The second version got him prison. The investors who wrote checks with “Airbnb” and “Peloton” in the memo line have been ordered $249,000 in restitution. The Maserati is already registered in someone else’s name.
