U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said Friday that a federal grand jury has returned a 64-count indictment against a Tickfaw man, who used a ponzi scheme to bilk more than $19 million from 160 elderly investors, the majority being from St. Tammany Parish.

Matthew B. Pizzolato, 26, of Tickfaw was charged with 52 counts of mail fraud, two counts of wire fraud, seven counts of money laundering, one count of securities fraud, one count of witness tampering and one count of obstruction of justice. Letten said in a Friday afternoon press conference that Pizzolato was arrested by FBI agents an hour after the indictment was issued

Pizzolato had been operating his scam on mostly senior citizens since 2005, Letten said. In that time, Pizzolato set up more than 20 companies with names like Gulf Region Guaranty, Anova Marketing Systems and Green Pelican Group that he used to lure in his victims.

He opened offices in Covington, Hammond, Metairie and Baton Rouge.

He told potential investors through advertisements in local newspapers that his investments were “guaranteed,” “no-risk,” “safe,” and he would say the rates of return were higher than usual. He told investors that their money was backed by U.S. Treasury bills.

But what Pizzolato was doing was basically theft, Letten said.

Pizzolato would take investors money and spend it on himself, buying expensive cars, jewelry, and gifts for his family. He also used investors’ money for cruises, Hornets tickets and lavish meals.

He was even building a multi-million dollar home in Ponchatoula and had recently bought his girlfriend a very expensive diamond engagement ring. In the end, Pizzolato had bilked $19.5 million from 160 people, some of whom had turned over their life savings to him.

He managed to keep the scheme going by sending some investors what Letten called “lulling” amounts of money to show that their money was safe and making money.

Pizzolato’s scheme started to unravel in 2007 when the Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions began getting a lot of phone calls from investors who wanted to know if Pizzolato was legitimate and if their money was safe.

“The investments sounded very unusual,” said Linda Reeves who works in the Securities Division of the OFI. “Things just didn’t sound right.”

The OFI issued a cease and desist order to Pizzolato, but he continued to lure investors into his web, so the OFI turned the case over to the FBI, who along with the help of the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Postal Service were able to get enough evidence against Pizzolato for an indictment.

Authorities also found out that Pizzolato tried to bribe one of his employees with $20,000 to destroy certain records.

The employee refused, and the attempted bribe led to the witness tampering charge. Later, Pizzolato later went to another employee’s home, stole business records from the home and attempted to destroy them, which led to the obstruction of justice charge.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Klebba said that even though Pizzolato had victims all over Southeast Louisiana, the majority of the victims were in St. Tammany Parish. Through his Covington office, Pizzolato lured in clients from Covington, Mandeville and Slidell, Klebba said.

Even with the cease and desist orders, and knowing he was under investigation, Klebba said Pizzolato was still taking money and doing business up to a few weeks ago.

What really got authorities angry was that the victims were senior citizens.

“It affected our most vulnerable citizens —the elderly,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge David Welker. “It is unconscionable that in this stressful economy, senior citizens would be targeted and defrauded of their life savings.”

Though the indictment does not name victims, it lists the amounts of money taken from some of the people who were drawn into Pizzolato’s scheme. The sums ranged from $16,000 to more than $300,000.

Letten said he believes the investigation is “pretty well wrapped up,” and he does not think authorities will find any more victims. However, he said there might be more victims, but the U.S. Attorney’s office doesn’t know about them, because they may have died before the investigation was complete.

Reeves said that this should be a warning to potential investors to investigate where they are putting their money.

“It sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” Reeves said. She said that people who want to know more about investing properly and safely should go to her department’s Web site, www. wofi.la.gov.