Phoenix real-estate guru gets 4-year prison sentence

A Phoenix celebrity real-estate guru and self-described graduate of the "new school of self-made moguls" will spend the next four years in prison for money laundering and tax evasion.

Tanya Marchiol was sentenced in federal court this week for helping drug dealers buy a house and for failing to pay income tax on $1.4 million earned between 2008 and 2010.

Marchiol, 40, pleaded guilty to tax evasion in November before a jury convicted her on the money laundering charges.

The sentence was less than half of the nine-year prison term sought by federal prosecutors who said Marchiol "committed her crimes to satisfy her own greed and vanity" and accused her of ongoing fraud before, during and after her trial.

"Unable to succeed legitimately as a real estate agent, Marchiol simply defrauded investors, lenders, and committed money laundering to finance her love for money," prosecutors said in a sentencing motion last month. "Consistent with her selfishness, Marchiol radiated contempt for others, evidenced by interviews with her own employees and investors."

Marchiol, who initially pleaded not guilty, said in an interview last year she would be "more than happy" to talk about the case when it was over. She expressed remorse to the court.

"Ms. Marchiol has accepted responsibility for her involvement and has been nothing but cooperative and forthright with (authorities)," her lawyer, Ed Novak, said in a motion calling for a reduced sentence. "The collateral consequences of this matter have been significant. Ms. Marchiol has seen the loss of her real estate and broker's license, loss of her income revenue and loss of professional reputation."

Marchiol is the founder and former chief executive officer of Team Investments in Phoenix. She rose to real-state stardom at the height of the economic downturn. She amassed a celebrity client list of Arizona athletes, wrote a book on wealth management and was a sought-after commentator on radio and television shows, including CNN, CNBC and Fox Business. She was interviewed by12 News in Phoenix about real estate.

Marchiol's personal success story was hard to ignore. The youngest of three children, Marchiol grew up in Colorado, attended college on athletic scholarships and played professional volleyball in Italy.

In 2000, she said was injured when a golf cart rolled over and crushed her ankle. In past media interviews, Marchiol said was recovering and trying to figure out what she would do with her life when her mother handed her real estate brochures.

"This event could have easily caused Ms. Marchiol to spiral into alcohol dependence and depression," Novak told the court. "Instead, she was determined during her recovery time to learn the business of real estate. Ms. Marchiol had no prior experience in real estate, nor formal guidance or training. Through her determination to succeed, she built a successful and highly public profile during a time she was ending her professional athletic career."

On her company's former website, Marchiol promoted her "ability to create wealth for her clients after one of the greatest real estate depressions of our time."

In her book, "The Prosperity Principles: Secrets to Developing and Maintaining Generational Wealth," Marchiol advocated "running your life like a business where everything you do can be deducted from your reportable income as a business expense."

Agents with the Internal Revenue Service criminal investigation division in Phoenix said Marchiol has a history of not filing income-tax returns going back to 1998. From 2005 until 2011, authorities said Marchiol did not file income-tax returns.

Marchiol was indicted in 2013 on charges of failing to pay income taxes and conspiring with drug traffickers to purchase a home and hide the source of income.

Authorities said the traffickers gave Marchiol with $140,000 in cash to buy the house, which she deposited into a business account and commingled with funds from professional athletes who were her clients.

Marchiol signed a purchase agreement in the name of the business account and then leased the house to the traffickers.

The deal fell apart when Arizona authorities attempted to seize the house as part of an asset-forfeiture case. In Maricopa County Superior Court documents, Marchiol claimed she was the owner of the property and served as landlord to the traffickers, who leased the property from her.

Marchiol's foray into criminal conduct was neither sudden nor surprising, prosecutors said. They told the court she has engaged in multiple fraud schemes connected to her real-estate business, although no charges have been filed over the alleged crimes.

"Marchiol has uninterrupted instances of criminal conduct that started in 1997, including failure to pay taxes, investment fraud, loan origination fraud, a felony conviction for theft, money laundering, structuring financial transactions and a recently discovered fraudulent property investment scheme," prosecutors said in court documents.

"Each transgression has the common thread of dishonesty and the willingness to do anything to obtain money by theft or misrepresentation fueled by sheer hubris and greed," prosecutors said.

They said Marchiol committed loan fraud, used relatives as straw buyers for properties she controlled and falsely claimed to have real-estate licenses in other states.

Prosecutors said Marchiol failed to disclose conflicts of interest and, in one case, influenced a buyer to purchase property without telling him she was the owner. They said she added extra commissions to closings without buyers' knowledge.

Marchiol was also accused of illegally selling securities without a license to investors for a video-game production called Stargate. Authorities say she took investor money, deposited it into her own accounts and used it to pay her living expenses.

Prosecutors said they recently discovered that Marchiol duped investors in an ongoing property investment scheme that began in 2013. No charges have been filed in the matter.

"Marchiol solicited a number of investors to purchase three houses in metropolitan Phoenix ... to fix and flip the properties," prosecutors told the court. "Instead, Marchiol diverted the money to fund a remodel of her own house, among other unrelated construction expenses."

Prosecutors said Marchiol misrepresented the status of the remodel to the investors by telling them the project was nearly completed; delays were caused by Scottsdale's failure to provide permits; and that the contractor had run of the money.

"Recently, Marchiol tried to dump the failed investment into the investors' hands with a proposed settlement agreement," prosecutors told the court, adding the proposed settlement absolved Marchiol and her companies from liability.

Novak said prosecutors were trying to increase Marchiol's sentence based on uncharged conduct that had no connection to the money laundering and tax charges. He argued that prosecutors could not prove she committed fraud.

"Here the government has done little more than to present e-mails and mortgage loan documents without accompanying testimony to show that Ms. Marchiol engaged in any criminal conduct," Novak said.

He argued against incarceration, saying evidence shows shorter sentences serve as tremendous deterrents to white-collar offenders. He asked the court to assign Marchiol to a women's camp.

"The impact on her personally and her family cannot be overstated," Novak said. "Any amount of incarceration serves as a tremendous cautionary reminder for her and others that criminal conduct carries serious consequences."