About three dozen people attended the hearing, including victims, family members and 10 members of Scronic’s Gamblers Anonymous group.
The judge heard from four of Scronic’s victims, including Ari Perlman, who met Scronic when they were both graduate students at the University of Chicago. He called Scronic "the conniving, dishonest thief that stole my family’s hard-earned money."
Perlman urged the judge to impose the maximum sentence.
"I do not feel vindictive,” he said, “just violated."
Victims included his mother, Marianne Scronic. who watched the two-hour hearing with a box of tissues in her lap. She lost $50,000 to her son’s fraud. She also asked the judge to show leniency.
"He couldn’t face everybody" after losing their money, she said. "And then the losses got worse and worse."
The case is U.S. v. Scronic, 18-cr-00043, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (White Plains).
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.