here's the article about defrauding Hungarian investors:
"Article Courtesy of TOL News
BUDAPEST, Hungary--She could never live behind bars, sang pop diva Sarolta Zalatnay but the 56-year-old singer-entrepreneur will soon start a three-year prison sentence for fraud. The story of the first Hungarian celebrity in recent memory sentenced to serve time in jail is also a cautionary tale of recent Hungarian capitalism. A Budapest city court has confirmed a December 2002 lower court verdict that found Zalatnay guilty of fraudulently borrowing 112 million forints (now $560,000) from private individuals, most of whom never got back even a forint of either principal or interest.
Zalatnay and several associates appealed to the Budapest court, but on 23 September Judge Akos Szekely not only confirmed the three-year term originally handed down, but made the sentence even stricter. The singer will have to spend at least 27 months in prison before she can be considered for release.
She moved into the infant commercial television business, but her private channel soon flopped, leaving many investors empty-handed. The failure of that venture led directly to Zalatnay's fraud conviction. The dramatic fare featured many graduates of the country's first private drama academy, one of whom,
Csaba Marton (aka Martin del Toro) ![](/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bentoverbanana.gif)
, 25 years Zalatnay's junior, she later married.
Marton, who later fled to Los Angeles and reportedly started working as a director for American porn company Red Light District Video , was also charged with fraud. In 2002, however, he informed the court that a medical condition prevented him from traveling by air to stand trial. During the trial, prosecutors outlined how the women raised money for Zalatnay's television station. Through magazine and newspaper advertisements, A and M found private investors to loan money ranging from a few hundred thousand to several million forints, promising them monthly interest of 10 to 15 percent. A and M said it would put up collateral in the form of property and cars--which, it emerged, were either of low value or not even owned by Zalatnay's company.
Some investors handed over their life savings , lured by the promised interest and, as some of them mentioned in their court testimony, the singer's fame and the respect they had for her. Their possible qualms were also calmed by the fact that A and M's lawyer had signed the loan agreements--they were not aware that Godla had by then been disbarred.
The judge in the 2002 trial described how several families broke up and one investor committed suicide when it became clear they would never get their money back."