March 09, 2026
The receiver for a Philadelphia company behind the $405 million Par Funding merchant cash advance Ponzi scheme reached a plea deal Monday, where the company pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and securities fraud, prosecutors said.
October 24, 2025
The wife of Par Funding founder and convicted fraudster Joseph LaForte has been sentenced to one day in prison and a nearly $1.7 million penalty after pleading guilty to a charge related to evading taxes.
June 02, 2025
Joseph Cole Barleta, the last of the triumvirate behind the $404 million Par Funding investment scam to be sentenced, was handed a 66-month prison term Monday, along with a staggering $303 million restitution order.
April 29, 2025
A Colorado accountant pled guilty to abetting the former CEO of now-defunct small-business lending firm Par Funding in concealing over $20 million in income from the Internal Revenue Service, prosecutors announced.
March 14, 2025
A Pennsylvania federal judge has sentenced Par Funding principal James "Jimmy" LaForte to 11 years and four months in prison for helping his family run a $404 million racketeering conspiracy and violently assaulting Par Funding receivership's court-appointed counsel in a position prosecutors described as the loan company's "loyal attack dog."
January 17, 2025
Par Funding caused $288 million in losses stemming from a scheme to defraud investors who poured money into its cash advance business, a Pennsylvania federal judge said Friday, days after holding an evidentiary hearing where the government and the defendants sparred over dueling loss amounts.
January 13, 2025
Prosecutors and defense attorneys spent hours in a marathon hearing Monday trying to convince a Pennsylvania judge of how much financial damage they thought the principals of the Par Funding merchant lending business did by allegedly fleecing investors, with the government pushing for a $404 million figure.
October 16, 2024
The last member of the triumvirate behind Par Funding, a cash advance company that federal prosecutors say bilked investors out of $100 million, pleaded guilty to racketeering in Pennsylvania federal court Wednesday, just weeks before he was scheduled to stand trial.
September 11, 2024
The two brothers helming Philadelphia's Par Funding cash advance company admitted to reaping $100 million through an investment fraud scheme that could land them each over a decade in prison, Philadelphia's top federal prosecutor announced.
February 28, 2024
Legal troubles for the principals of Philadelphia's Par Funding cash advance company are mounting as federal prosecutors hit them with a new indictment adding Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act allegations on top of existing charges that the principals bilked investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars and threatened violence against borrowers.