A former Vornado Realty Trust executive was sentenced to 11 years in prison for a fraud scheme that drained more than $9.5M from his former employer.
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Jared Solomon, 49, was sentenced for wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and bank fraud and was ordered to pay $9M after he was found guilty of running a 14-year scheme in which he submitted fake invoices to Vornado and pocketed the payments.
Solomon was also sentenced to three years of supervised relief and will forfeit his interest in two luxury homes that he purchased with the fraudulent funds, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said in a statement Friday.
Solomon worked as an executive in Vornado’s leasing department and oversaw the REIT’s billboard atop the 1540 Broadway office tower in Times Square, The Real Deal reported.
Starting in 2009, Solomon created fake commercial real estate brokerage companies called Margoux Media and Cobalt Advisors to present invoices to Vornado for fake construction expenses, with the payments directed to accounts he controlled.
Solomon used the proceeds from the fraud to buy a $4.6M house in Purchase, New York, and a $3.6M apartment in Manhattan that are being surrendered as part of the sentence. The home purchases reportedly raised eyebrows at the time inside Vornado, where co-workers wondered how he could afford the properties given his salary.
He also used the cash to buy a country club membership and a Porsche, among other luxury expenses, prosecutors said.
Solomon created fraudulent email addresses from which he posed as fictitious personas, used temporary phone numbers and purchased a separate cellphone to pose as representatives of his fake companies, prosecutors said.
Vornado fired Solomon in December 2023 for unrelated performance issues, according to TRD.
He was first charged with the fraud in June 2025 and pleaded not guilty. He was convicted after a trial in April where the jury deliberated for roughly an hour and a half before returning the verdict.
At the sentencing, Solomon wept as he expressed remorse for his crimes and said he acted with “a complete lack of moral compass,” TRD reported.
“To be clear and completely blunt, I engaged in fraud,” he said.
He was convicted on two counts of bank fraud and one count each of wire fraud and identity theft. During his time defrauding Vornado, Solomon also posed as an actual real estate broker and used the name of an existing real estate firm to extract payments from one of New York City’s largest landlords.
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