Vanessa Roberts Avery, the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that John Voloshin, also known as "Josh Thomas," has been sentenced to approximately 41 months of imprisonment. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny in Hartford and includes time already served, followed by three years of supervised release. Voloshin is required to spend the first six months of his supervised release in a halfway house.
Court documents reveal that in May 2012, Voloshin received a 33-month prison sentence and three years of supervised release for operating multiple fraud schemes causing over $1.5 million in losses. After his release from prison in May 2014, he violated federal supervised release terms by lying about a job with a real estate concern in London, leading to an additional nine-month sentence in November 2014. Released again in June 2015, he committed another fraud scheme later that year by soliciting money under false pretenses for high returns on investments. In November 2017, he was sentenced to 27 months for this offense and violating his supervised release again, along with an order to pay $275,000 restitution.
Between January and April 2019, Voloshin defrauded an accounting and tax preparation service company in Bloomfield by stealing blank checks from their business account and forging signatures for personal gain. He incorporated a sham entity with a similar name to the company and used it to deposit stolen funds totaling $56,548.71.
A federal grand jury indicted Voloshin on September 23, 2020. He was arrested on July 14, 2021, in Sao Paulo, Brazil and detained since then. On May 30, 2024, he pleaded guilty to bank fraud and aggravated identity theft charges.
Judge Chatigny ordered full restitution from Voloshin for his crimes.
The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with assistance from the Bloomfield Police Department and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David T. Huang and Sean P. Mahard.
U.S Attorney Avery expressed gratitude towards Interpol and Brazilian authorities for apprehending Voloshin as well as the U.S Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs for coordinating extradition proceedings.