Daniel Resnick, the owner of Peters Market and other area businesses who was arrested on money laundering charges back in December 2021, has pled guilty to one count of “information.” This means Resnick waived the right to be indicted by a grand jury and instead pled guilty to the final charge as presented, which ultimately was the lesser charge of "conducting an unlicensed money transmitting business," according to Resnick's lawyer Kerry Lawrence.

Resnick was arrested on December 16 on money laundering charges, according to court documents issued by the U.S. District Court, White Plains. The initial complaint claimed that he used his businesses to launder about $1 million for undercover law enforcement agents. FBI Special Agent Joseph Calvello testified against Resnick and was a part of the undercover scheme along with a confidential informant.

Resnick pled guilty on February 27 and agreed to forfeit $310,800 to the U.S. government, which represents “the amount of property involved in the offense charged in Count One of the Information” plea, per court documents. Resnick had also previously posted a $100,000 cash bail as part of a court-ordered “personal recognizance bond.” That money will now be applied to Resnick’s monetary judgement. The remaining $210,800 will be due on or before the date of his sentencing.

If Resnick doesn’t pay the remaining amount, the government can seek forfeiture of “substitute assets” up to the amount owed. However, in January of this year, Resnick’s lawyer told the Shawangunk Journal that none of his businesses would be forfeited, which includes Peters Market.

A sentencing hearing is currently scheduled for June 23 before U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Seibel.

Plea of Information

A plea of information still includes an accusation, but is sometimes used to expedite a court case. The Department of Justice defines it as “an accusation in the nature of an indictment, from which it differs only in being presented by a competent public officer on his oath of office, instead of a grand jury on their oath.”

One legal expert suggested that a plea of information is used when the evidence is so overwhelming that the defendant and their legal team opt to forgo the grand jury process and just cut a deal. In this case, Resnick was caught up in an undercover sting operation in which the money laundering scheme took place between him and an undercover officer. Special Agent Calvello’s testimony included a damaging blow by blow of Resnick’s actions.

A Case Unfolds

In his sworn testimony, Calvello shared Resnick’s apparent willingness to participate in a proposed money laundering scheme. Money laundering, for those unfamiliar, is the illegal act of earning large amounts of money through criminal activity, such as drug or stolen good sales, and making it appear as though the earnings came from a legitimate source.

On May 21, 2019, an FBI informant spoke with Resnick over the phone and asked if he could connect them with someone who “has cash… that wants to change it, that wants to sell,” which was in reference to laundering money. During this call, Resnick was quoted as saying, “They’re gonna charge you... probably 15%.”

The informant, per Calvello, later told Resnick that someone (the undercover officer) was interested in “maintaining an artificially high price of a certain stock related to a car battery” that was not on the market yet, but that the stock had to be kept at a certain price until it went to Wall Street. Then when discussing taking the undercover agent’s money, Resnick said he would accept the money, then return it using checks or cash.

“Checks, writing checks back, I could do whatever I want… I can do whatever I want with writing checks… I’ll write checks in and out. I don’t care, I don’t care… and I’m sure I can come up with a couple hundred thousand in cash,” Resnick was quoted as saying, per court documents. He then reportedly accepted a $20,000 check from the informant (who was given the check by the FBI for this sting operation) and agreed to return $18,000 via check, taking the difference as a sort of commission. The $18,000 check was from one of Resnick’s businesses, Resnick Supermarket Equipment Corp. (RSE), which is located in Fallsburg.

In August of that year, the undercover agent was introduced to Resnick by the informant. The undercover agent told Resnick that he was involved in promoting “over-the-counter stocks,” which are stocks traded between two entities without being listed on an exchange, like the New York Stock Exchange. The undercover agent described the scheme to Resnick. “We’re pumping up the stock and once we get that stock priced to a certain nice high bullsh*t price that doesn’t really exist, we sell the sh*t out of it from our offshore accounts... and then we have a lot of cash in those accounts, sitting offshore in those accounts… and… obviously we wanna spend it and I gotta pay people…”

The undercover agent then told Resnick that the $20,000 check he received from the informant was “a small piece of the whole pie…” and that he needed Resnick’s help “cleaning” the money, or making it appear to come from a legitimate source.

When asked if he could handle money wires or just checks, Resnick allegedly said, “I probably could, I mean I don’t see why I wouldn’t… I have one company that I’ve had for years and years and years that I use. Never done a tax return on it, it just sits there… monies go in, monies go out…”

At the end of the meeting, the informant gave Resnick a check for $50,000, also provided to him by the FBI for this sting, to launder. Follow-up calls discussed additional checks. During one of these calls, Resnick said that using checks would allow him to put it through his “books” like returned merchandise. He added later in the conversation, “That’s the way I do it for a couple people. You know what I mean? Not just you. This is not the first time. Now that I understand it, it is the same thing I did before.”

Court documents then described several exchanges of checks between FBI-controlled bank accounts and Resnick’s supermarket business, with Resnick typically collecting a fee of nearly 20% from each check laundered.

Resnick bought Peters Market in March 2020 after it closed in January of that year. In addition to Peters Market and RSE, Resnick owns the Trading Post in Rock Hill and Liberty Market in Liberty.