Boca businessman who stole $1.45 million from ‘friend’ asks judge to spare him from prison

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Boca businessman who stole $1.45 million from ‘friend’ asks judge to spare him from prison

WEST PALM BEACH — A

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businessman facing up to 90 years in prison for

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asked a judge to spare him — not for his sake, he said, but for his victim’s.

David Bruce Cohen, 61, owes more than $1.45 million to Tania Deutsch, whose

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. Despite being described by his supporters Friday as “delusional,” “naive” and having “never made good business decisions,” Cohen insisted he could recoup the money if only he remains free.

Assistant State Attorney Michael Del Sontro disagreed.

“Even if he walked out of here today, I don’t think he would ever pay anything substantial or even remotely come close to making her whole again,” the prosecutor said.

Siding with Del Sontro, who called Cohen’s promises of wealth “just history repeating itself,” Circuit Judge Howard Coates sentenced Cohen to 14 years and six months in prison.

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David Bruce Cohen appears at the Palm Beach County Courthouse on Feb. 21, 2025. Convicted of defrauding a woman out of more than $1.4 million, he was sentenced to 14.5 years in state prison.

The judge’s decision followed lengthy debate over the likelihood that Deutsch would ever recover a semblance of her prior fortune.

“If the state had its way, Cohen would rot in prison for two decades and Deutsch would not receive a dime,” Assistant Public Defender Abraham Hoffman said.

Hoffman proposed an alternative. He pointed to Paul Gozaloff, Cohen’s longtime associate, who testified Friday that he would hire the convicted felon for a cybersecurity job with the potential for a six-figure salary if he were sentenced to probation instead of prison.

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Probation would come with strict conditions, Hoffman said: a substantial portion of his income to be paid toward restitution, combined with mandatory treatment for alcoholism and gambling addiction, habits which Hoffman said fueled Cohen’s crimes.

He maintained Friday that Cohen has had a reckoning. Before his arrest, his life was defined by “obsessive securities trading and high-risk business ventures,” symptoms of a gambling addiction that led him to financial ruin. Now, the attorney said, he is ready to rebuild, and to try — however slowly — to make Deutsch whole.

Neither prosecutors nor Deutsch believe that’s possible.

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David Bruce Cohen appears at the Palm Beach County Courthouse on Feb. 21, 2025. Convicted of defrauding a woman out of more than $1.4 million, he was sentenced to 14.5 years in state prison.

Woman who once inherited $1.45M survives on meals of rice and beans

According to investigators, Cohen met Deutsch in 2016 at Blue Martini in Boca ****** and presented himself as a successful businessman. Deutsch, who inherited $1.4 million from a distant friend one year earlier, wired the funds to Cohen’s company, ECP Capital, on his promise to invest it in a medical ********** company and a Royal Palm Beach housing development.

Instead, prosecutors said Cohen laundered the money into his personal checking account, rebuffing Deutsch’s requests for proof of the investment and reassuring her that he had taken care of it.

In a sentencing memorandum, the prosecutor painted a bleak picture of Deutsch’s life in the years since Cohen drained her savings.

She was forced to sell properties, lost her home to foreclosure, could not afford a necessary tumor-removal surgery for her daughter and pulled her son out of college after she could no longer afford tuition. She has struggled to pay for basic necessities, rationing heat in her Pennsylvania home throughout the winter and surviving on meals of beans and rice.

“Practically everything that was prepared for and had previously went smoothly in Ms. Deutsch’s life is now in financial turmoil,” Del Sontro said.

“She spends her time mentally exhausted because of the effect of the crime that occurred and goes to bed thinking about the bills she now cannot pay and the money she regrets getting stolen from her.”

During his trial in October, Cohen’s team of public defenders emphasized the friendship that developed between Cohen and Deutsch and argued that Deutsch loaned the money to Cohen — he didn’t steal it.

Cohen said Friday that he’d been taken advantage of and manipulated into pursuing bad business deals but apologized to Deutsch nevertheless.

“I fully understand that my behavior caused injury to someone else, specifically Ms. Deutsch,” Cohen said. “There’s no way I can rationalize that myself and look at myself as a man. I have to face myself for that.”

Deutsch listened to the sentencing hearing over Zoom but did not address the court herself. She told prosecutors she wanted Cohen to spend “at least 10 years” in prison, according to Del Sontro.

Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at *****@*****.tld.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post:

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